Head of Engineering

An exciting opportunity has arisen for an experienced Head of Engineering to join a leading manufacturing organisation.

This senior leadership role will drive engineering strategy, lead a high-performing engineering function and support operational excellence across a large-scale manufacturing environment.

Role

The purpose of the Head of Engineering is to lead the delivery of excellence through the development and implementation of the engineering strategy, ensuring optimal asset performance, reliability and compliance while driving a culture of continuous improvement across the organisation.

The role is responsible for leading and developing the function, including maintenance, reliability and projects teams, ensuring the site achieves world‑class standards in safety, performance and operational effectiveness.

Key Responsibilities

• Acts as a visible leader and agent of change, driving a high-performance culture and exemplary standards across the organisation.
• Defines, develops and delivers strategy, ensuring alignment with business objectives and operational requirements.
• Leads and embeds effective maintenance and reliability strategies to maximise asset availability, reduce downtime and improve plant performance.
• Oversees capital investment projects from concept through to delivery, ensuring projects are completed safely, on time and within budget.
• Provides active leadership through coaching, problem-solving, continuous improvement initiatives and collaboration with operational teams.
• Ensures effective systems, processes and governance are in place to improve reliability, efficiency and long-term performance.
• Leads the engineering function and contributes to the site leadership team by developing team capability, setting performance objectives and driving accountability.

Criteria for the Head of Engineering

• Significant leadership experience within a manufacturing or industrial setting with a proven track record of delivering operational improvements
• Strong expertise across maintenance, reliability with experience managing complex manufacturing operations.
• Degree-qualified in a discipline (Mechanical, Electrical or similar).
• Experience of delivering CAPEX projects, managing budgets and supporting long-term asset strategies.
• Knowledge and practical experience of continuous improvement methodologies including Lean, Six Sigma or TPM.
• Proven people leadership capability, including leading, developing and managing high‑performing teams.