Head Of Engineering

Job Overview:

Responsible for developing and executing the engineering strategy, ensuring maximum equipment reliability, factory performance, food safety compliance, and capital project delivery. Driving continuous improvement, asset reliability, operational excellence, and engineering best practice across growing, production, packaging, utilities, and site infrastructure. A key role in supporting efficiency, quality, safety, and future growth plans.

Main Duties and Responsibilities

Engineering Leadership

• Lead, coach, and develop engineering teams to create a high-performance culture.
• Drive accountability through clear KPIs and performance management.

Asset Reliability & Maintenance

• Ensure the delivery of preventative, predictive, and condition-based maintenance programmes.
• Improve Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE), uptime, reliability, and asset performance.
• Lead root cause analysis (RCA) and corrective action processes for recurring equipment failures.
• Identify and implement inventory levels, ensuring critical parts are available.
• Manage our CMMS/EAM platform and ensure robust maintenance planning and execution.

Food Safety & Compliance

• Ensure engineering activities comply with food safety, quality, and regulatory requirements, that prevents contamination risks, foreign body hazards, and product quality issues.
• Support and maintain compliance with: BRCGS, HACCP principles, GMP, Health & Safety legislation and Environmental regulations.
• Manage engineering change controls to ensure all modifications are risk assessed and validated from a food safety, quality, and operational perspectives.

Continuous Improvement

• Lead Lean Manufacturing and continuous improvement initiatives.
• Identify opportunities to reduce downtime, waste, energy consumption, and maintenance costs.
• Implement best practice maintenance methodologies across the site.
• Work closely with Technical, Growing, Production, and Hygiene teams to drive continuous food safety improvements focused on reducing food safety risks and downtimes through equipment reliability, hygienic design, automation, and preventative maintenance.

Capital Projects

• Develop and manage annual engineering and capital expenditure budgets.
• Lead capital investment projects from concept through commissioning.
• Manage contractors, suppliers, and external engineering partners.
• Evaluate new technologies, automation opportunities, and process improvements.

Utilities & Infrastructure

• Ensure reliable operation of site utilities including refrigeration, steam, compressed air, water treatment, heating, ventilation and any other building services.
• Develop energy management initiatives supporting sustainability goals.
• Maintain site infrastructure to support safe and efficient operations.

Health, Safety & Environmental

• Champion a strong safety culture across engineering and operations.
• Ensure compliance with site safe systems of work, permit-to-work processes, and contractor management procedures.

Key Competencies:

• Minimum 10 years' engineering experience within food manufacturing, high-care, high-risk, chilled, fresh, or ready-to-eat food manufacturing environments.
• At least 5 years in a senior engineering leadership role.
• Strong fault-finding skills: Using meters, diagrams, sensors and logic to identify the root cause of issues.
• Knowledge of PLCs, conveyors, motors, sensors.
• Mechanical competent in electrical panels, relays, drivers, sensors.
• Electrical competent in mechanical fitting, pneumatics, hydraulics.
• Familiarity with packaging machinery, refrigeration, steam systems, and/or compressed air systems.