Head of Quality

Ready to make a meaningful impact in a highly precise, technical environment? Are you an experienced, strategic and hands‑on Head of Quality, ready to establish a robust, scalable Quality Management System (QMS) to support precision instrument manufacturing to the highest standards of reliability and performance? Can you ensure quality principles are adopted across the enterprise, regularly interfacing with our commercial, engineering and operational teams? If so, read on…

Reward and Benefits

• £65,000 to 85,000 (depending on experience)
• 25 days annual leave, death in service and private health care benefits, personal pension contributions of 4% with salary sacrifice and a generous EMI Share scheme

Based in Abingdon, Oxford, UK, we are a high calibre team of 100 plus people and we are growing fast. We are backed by global financial and industry investors including Applied Ventures, the strategic venture arm of the industry leading equipment company.

About the Role

The Head of Quality is critical to enabling sustainable growth, protecting our brand, and ensuring we deliver world‑class metrology systems that meet the demanding requirements of advanced materials science, nanotechnology, and semiconductor applications.

Location and Work Pattern

All of our new UK team members are asked to work on site here at Abingdon during their first three months with us. We offer flexible, hybrid working where possible upon completion of probation, although the expectation for this role is that there is a high requirement to be present on site most days. The role is suitable for someone within commutable distance of our HQ in Abingdon, Oxfordshire.

Typical Day

Quality Strategy & Leadership

• Owning the entire Quality function, leading with cross‑team influence
• Defining and delivering a quality strategy that powers growth and embedding quality as a non‑negotiable part of the company’s DNA

Quality Management System

• Ownership of documentation control and internal audits
• Leading all certification activities and ensuring ongoing regulatory compliance

Product & Design Quality

• Partnering with Engineering to bake ISO9001 principles into product development
• Putting strong, structured risk management practices front and centre
• Building a dependable change management process with Engineering and NPI

Supply Chain

• Guiding the Supply Chain team in creating robust supplier qualification and audit programmes
• Setting up inspection processes that scale effectively with demand
• Supporting supplier corrective actions and pushing for continuous improvements

Manufacturing & Operational Quality

• Leading nonconformance management, CAPA and root‑cause investigations
• Developing inspection, calibration and quality processes to reduce production risk and building tight feedback loops with Customer Support and Product

Qualifications

• Quality leadership, with a focus on building trusted relationships and clear, thoughtful communication with stakeholders; comfortable sharing updates at executive level
• At least 3 years leading a Quality function
• Comfortable in low volume, high value, complex optomechanical manufacturing environments, especially during scaleup
• Remaining grounded and composed in fast moving settings, applying balanced, considerate judgement
• Understanding growth through start‑up, scaleup and mature enterprise systems, and guiding that evolution
• Developing the QMS in high growth environments, ensuring it remains supportive and scalable
• Working collaboratively across the value chain
• A strong sense of ownership, encouraging shared accountability across Operations and cross‑functional teams
• Choosing solutions that serve the bigger picture rather than one department

Nice to Have

• Experience leading a quality function within the Semiconductor field

Education / Qualifications

• Either a Degree in a relevant discipline (e.g. Physics, Engineering, Quality Management) or similar, or a clear equivalent path through relevant apprenticeship or significant accumulated experience.

Attributes

• Self‑management: Able to work independently, setting priorities for own work based upon the company goals and targets.
• Teamwork: Engages with other members of the company to bring the best solutions to the problem. Recognise the value that fellow company members bring to enhance own abilities. Supports colleagues with their tasks when critical to the company goals.
• Impact and Influence: Establishes themselves as the knowledge centre in their own field.
• Ownership & Initiative: React and address both short‑ and medium‑term issues and proactively takes action to solve them.
• Results Orientation: Focus on the company goal, avoid distraction, making timely decisions to achieve the target.

If you require adjustments to take part in the recruitment process, please let us know, we’ll do our best to support you.