Head of Engineering/Engineering Manager
Harlow
Monday to Friday
Salary Up to £70,000
We're looking for an experienced Head of Engineering/Engineering Manager to lead all engineering and maintenance activities across our food manufacturing operation. This is a senior, hands-on leadership role and as such will be part of our Senior Leadership Team. You will be responsible for driving asset reliability, continuous improvement, compliance, and long-term engineering strategy in a fast-paced FMCG environment.
In this critical business role, you will oversee the engineering team to ensure that all KPIs are achieved and that the operation is supported to produce finished products to our customers on time and in full. You'll lead our multi-disciplinary engineering team, ensuring maximum equipment uptime, you will play a key role in capital projects, site development, and operational excellence
Riverway Foods was a family-owned business based in Harlow, Essex until becoming part of the CPC Group. We produce some of the best sausages around and supply in to some of the major retailers including Aldi and Tesco. Are you our ideal candidate?
Responsibilities include:
* Lead, develop and motivate the engineering and maintenance teams
* Own site engineering strategy, including preventive and predictive maintenance
* Drive improvements in OEE, reliability, and cost control
* Ensure full compliance with food safety, hygiene, H&S, and legal standards
* Manage capital expenditure, projects and contractor relationships
* Support continuous improvement initiatives
* Work closely with Operations, Technical and Supply Chain teams
* Ensure effective spare parts management and asset lifecycle planning
Behaviours of our ideal candidate include:
* Excellent leadership skills: Able to communicate clear objectives, provide feedback, suggest improvements for individual performance, coach and confirm competency – gains commitment
* Adapts to changing business needs, introduces new ways of thinking and behaving as well as applying new ideas
* Innovative, continually looking at trends and opportunities to improve the business
* Responsive and agile in the way you think, make decisions and handle change
* Builds strong relationships with colleagues, suppliers and contractors
* Can prioritise and work within tight deadlines
Knowledge, skills & experience include:
* Recognised engineering qualification - essential HNC/HND, desirable degree
* Significant manufacturing experience is a must, food manufacturing would be a bonus
* Financial awareness and business acumen
* Demonstrable career progression and looking for that next step
* Track record of leading teams and delivering performance improvements
* Project management experience
* Confident communication, influencing and networking skills
* Effective planning, organisational and prioritisation skills
What we can offer you:
* Salary up to £70,000
* 33 days holiday including bank holidays with an option to buy up to 5 more
* Leadership development programme
* Access to GroceryAid, which provides emotional, practical and financial support
* Benefits and recognition hub, including amazing colleague discounts
* Working with a great team, with people at the heart of everything we do
If you're interested in this opportunity, please send us your CV and a brief introduction about yourself. Thank you for considering Riverway Foods.