A day in the life of Stuart Perry, Operations Manager

I have never had a job quite like this. It’s exhilarating – crazy at times! – but extremely rewarding.

In various ways I am involved in nearly all areas of the Science Park business, jumping in and out as and when required. I am a manager and project planner but I’m also sometimes a repair man, an IT guy, a delivery person, a taxi driver and pretty much everyone else in between: a man of many talents!  

I started here in 2019. After more than twenty years in the hospitality sector working for the likes of Greene King, EI Group and Godiva Leisure, this position at the Science Park really appealed because it gave me the opportunity to work with a huge variety of really interesting businesses, all in one place.

I was immediately immersed in some major transformative projects, all with significant investment behind them, which I could see would move the park forward and ensure that residents can continue to give their employees great working and wellbeing spaces.

My team has already delivered a range of projects designed to alleviate some of the pressure on the south’s busy roads: a fully-funded, fully-branded bus service for the area, EV charging stations to support the uptake of electric vehicles, and an Enterprise car club which gives everyone the opportunity to walk, run, cycle or train to work, but still get to meetings by car during the day when needed.

But there were bigger projects on the horizon!

After completing the refurbishment of the Science Park team office and Catalyst Centre, we will shortly be unveiling our new café experience complete with lounge area equipped with wifi and wireless phone charging, and a brand new innovation space for collaborative working.

I’m also heavily involved in a really exciting venture: the £12.5m Future Towns Innovation Hub which is being built here to offer a unique collaborative space for future-focused engineering concept development. Compared to the typical £2-3m project spends I used to work with in the hospitality environment, career opportunities like this are few and far between, and hugely exciting for me to work on.

So, a typical day? Currently, project meetings and more project meetings to keep all our plans, as well as the day to day operations, firmly on track. Of course, hosting these meetings while home schooling and preventing my four year old daughter from gatecrashing them just added to the fun. 

Crazy or not, I enjoy my role here at Southampton Science Park very much. Looking to the future, I'm keen to keep providing the businesses here with the necessary facilities to ensure that they feel this is the right place for their businesses to be, to grow and to be proud of.