Case Study · SCAPE Group · Public Sector Built Environment · Aspiring Managers
A nine-month programme for SCAPE's aspiring managers became how the whole organisation learns to lead, right up to the chief executive.
A nine-month programme for SCAPE's aspiring managers worked so well it became how the whole organisation develops its leaders, from the front line to the Group Chief Executive. Rated 9.5 and an award winner along the way.From one programme to the whole organisation
Year 1
14
Manager Insights · aspiring managers
Year 2
10
Manager Insights · run again, a new cohort
Year 3
60
Elevate · front line to chief executive
Award winner
Workforce CN Learning Excellence Award 2025
8.9/10
how the cohorts rated the workshops, facilitators 9.5
2027
the partnership runs through March 2027
Executive Summary
- Sector
- Public Sector Built Environment
- Buyer
- Head of Learning & Development
The Brief
Take SCAPE's technical experts, the engineers, surveyors, data specialists and procurement leads stepping into their first management roles, and develop a coaching approach that runs through every part of how they lead, from one-to-ones to performance. Build the confidence and peer community to lead well from day one, and replace the short-course training that had not stuck with development that would.
The Outcome
An award-winning programme for aspiring managers, run two years running, that earned a new one: Elevate, taking everyone from the front line to the Group Chief Executive, through March 2027.
From the buyer
We needed a partner who could adapt to our needs and really understand our challenges.
10X Managers provided flexibility, a strong people management framework, and a bespoke programme that has made a real difference.”
Hayley Gosling
Head of Learning & Development, SCAPE Group
01 / The Trigger
Brilliant at the work. New to leading the people who do it.
SCAPE's growth kept promoting its best specialists into management. A brilliant engineer becomes a manager of engineers. A leading surveyor starts running a team of surveyors. And the expertise that earned the promotion is not the skill the new role demands. SCAPE saw that gap and chose to close it before it cost them managers, teams, or both.
The experts SCAPE promotes into management
01
Engineering
Lead Electrical Engineer, Lead Mechanical Engineer, ICT Infrastructure Engineer
02
Risk & Surveying
Fire Risk Assessor, Water Risk Assessor, Asbestos & Condition Surveyor
03
Data & Digital
Data Scientist, Full Stack Developer Lead, Data & Applications Lead
04
Frameworks & Procurement
Senior Framework Manager, Senior Procurement Manager, Contracts Manager
05
Finance & Audit
Head of Arc Finance, Audit Manager, Finance Team Leader
06
Marketing & Comms
Digital Marketing Lead, Content Marketing Partner, PR & Engagement Partner
SCAPE is one of the UK's leading public sector procurement specialists, owned by six local authorities and working with public bodies across the built environment. Its people are experts first: engineers, surveyors, risk assessors, data scientists, framework and procurement leads.
When those experts stepped up to manage, SCAPE had tried the conventional route: one-day and two-day courses. The content was generic, the follow-through was thin, and nothing stuck. There was no peer community for the new managers, and no sustainable way for them to keep developing once the course ended.
Hayley Gosling, SCAPE's Head of Learning and Development, brought 10X in to do it differently. One of SCAPE's own values is expertise, so they wanted to partner with experts in management development. At the heart of the brief was a clear aim: develop a coaching approach that ran through every part of managing, from how people are developed to how performance is raised. The programme would be bespoke to each manager, paced so the day job could continue, and built to grow a lasting coaching culture rather than tick a training box.
In SCAPE's words
SCAPE's people team were clear about what was at stake. This was not training for its own sake. It was the management capability the business plan depended on.
“This development is really important for SCAPE Group to ensure we've got capable and confident people managers to support the delivery of our business objectives.”
02 / Built for the public sector
Built for managers who answer to the public, not just a P&L.
SCAPE is public sector owned and public sector facing. Its managers deliver procurement frameworks for local authorities and public bodies, carry social value commitments alongside commercial targets, and lead hybrid teams that work across client organisations. The programme was built around that reality. The coaching conversations were about specialists serving public clients. The workshops on inclusive leadership, flexible and hybrid teams, and navigating difficult conversations were chosen because that is what leading at SCAPE actually involves. This was still a management and leadership programme. What made it land was that it was built for managers who lead inside the public sector ecosystem.
03 / The Work
A coaching spine, paced for the day job.
10X did not arrive at SCAPE with a course catalogue. Every participant completed a Manager Strength Index diagnostic first, surfacing each manager's individual strengths and focus areas, so SCAPE's organisational priorities and each person's development needs shaped one personal journey. Delivery was built for real jobs: 60-minute workshops at a monthly rhythm, a troubleshooting session between every Prime workshop to work the live problems managers brought back, and the LeadersLab platform behind it all for on-demand depth.
How the programme ran
01
Personal, by diagnostic
Every participant completed a Manager Strength Index, a 20 to 30 minute assessment that surfaces a manager's strengths, opportunities and development focus areas. It captured both what SCAPE wanted its managers to develop and what each manager knew they needed, so the programme was built around real individual gaps rather than a standard syllabus.
02
Paced for the day job
Bite-size 60-minute workshops on a steady cadence, with a troubleshooting session between every Prime working the live challenges SCAPE managers brought back. Development that fits around delivering frameworks, not instead of it.
03
A cohort, not a class
Managers progressed together, connecting peers across SCAPE departments that rarely interact day to day. The cohort became the support network: sharing challenges, comparing approaches, and embedding a learning culture that outlasts any single workshop.
The coaching spine, in the order SCAPE's managers climbed it
Rung 01
Coaching Fundamentals
the foundation: how a manager coaches rather than tells
Rung 02
Coaching for Development
growing each team member against their own goals
Rung 03
Coaching for Problem Solving
letting the team reach answers instead of handing them down
Rung 04
Coaching for Performance
raising the bar through conversations, not edicts
The film
Hear it from SCAPE
Five minutes with SCAPE and 10X on what the programme changed, in their words.
04 / What SCAPE says
A cohort that arrived quiet and left solving its own problems.
The coaching approach was the point. Workshops did not hand SCAPE's managers answers; they coaxed the answers out, so the solutions belonged to the room and fitted SCAPE specifically. Here is how the managers themselves describe it.
“The workshop encouraged debate and coaxed out answers from what started as a very quiet group. It encouraged the team to arrive at their own solutions instead of providing them, which enabled us to create solutions really specific to SCAPE.”
“I found the programme engaging and informative, with a fantastic, approachable and extremely knowledgeable facilitator. The more I learned, the more I realised how valuable this was going to be for me in a managerial role.”
“The focus areas were clearly defined and highly relevant to my day-to-day responsibilities, making the content practical and immediately applicable. An excellent programme designed to assess your strengths and weaknesses to improve your overall performance.”
“I am really excited that we will be carrying on with the 10X programme. All the workshops were really useful and informative. For me the key takeaway was that I need to be more intentional with my communication, open and honest with my team, and always ask for their feedback and ideas.”
“The course is officially finished, but I still log back in to the platform. I don't think learning ever stops when you become a manager, and it's reassuring to have those resources there.”
05 / What changed
The truest measure of a programme is what the client does next.
Reaction and recognition are the easy signals, and SCAPE's were strong. The deeper proof is what they chose to do once the first cohort had finished.
How the managers rated it
8.9/10
averaged across every rated workshop, two cohorts deep
9.5/10
average facilitator rating across the same sessions
10/10
the two most recent rated workshops, two years into the partnership
What the industry said
Learning Excellence Award Winner
Workforce CN Awards 2025
Recognition of the programme's design, its measurable results, and the strength of the partnership between SCAPE and 10X Managers.
What SCAPE did next
Manager Insights worked, so SCAPE ran it again for a new cohort of aspiring managers. Then it went further than a repeat: a new programme, Elevate, that put everyone from front-line managers to the Group Chief Executive into the same development.
Year 1 · 2024
14
Manager Insights
Aspiring managers, drawn from SCAPE's expert roles
The nine-month pilot. A coaching spine of six Prime workshops with a troubleshooting session between each. It went on to win the Workforce CN Learning Excellence Award.
Year 2 · 2025
10
Manager Insights
A new cohort of aspiring managers
The same programme, run again for the next intake. The clearest vote of confidence a client can give: they bought it twice.
Year 3 · 2026
60
Elevate
Front-line managers up to the Group Chief Executive
A new programme, broader than the first: the whole leadership population, through March 2027. Managing up, performance, innovation, delegation and cross-functional fellowship.
And now spanning every level of leadership
01
Aspiring Manager
specialists preparing for their first role
02
Front-Line Manager
first-time and front-line managers
03
Project / Team Leader
leads running delivery teams
04
Middle Manager
heads of function and senior managers
05
Director / Executive
directors and the executive team
06
Group Chief Executive
the top of the organisation, on Elevate too
The person who runs SCAPE now learns to lead in the same room as the person who just got their first team. That is what it looks like when leadership development stops being a course and becomes how an organisation works.
06 / Start here
If your best specialists keep becoming managers without the tools to lead, you are choosing between their growth and their teams. SCAPE chose neither.
Every partnership between 10X and a client is entirely bespoke and unique. Book a no-obligation call with one of our Development Experts to scope how we could support you and your situation.