Maintenance Sourcing Engineer
United Utilities
Salary – £45,974.00
Work Type – Onsite
Job Location – Lingley Mere (UU), Lingley Green Avenue, Great Sankey, Warrington, WA5 3LP
Role Type – Permanent
Employment Type – Full Time
About United Utilities
United Utilities’ purpose is to deliver great water for a stronger, greener and healthier North West of England. We support the environment, the economy, and society, fostering a culture of diversity, inclusion, and innovation. As part of a thriving FTSE 100 company, we offer a range of core benefits, including:
* A generous annual leave package of 26 days, increasing to 30 days after four years of service (increases one day per year), plus 8 bank holidays
* A competitive pension scheme with up to 14% employer contribution, 21% combined, and life cover
* Up to 7.5% performance‑related bonus scheme, plus recognition awards for outstanding achievements
* A comprehensive healthcare plan through our company‑funded scheme
* MyGymDiscounts – gym and wellness benefit offering up to 25% off on memberships and digital fitness subscriptions
* Best Doctors
* Salary Finance
* Wealth at Work courses
* Deals and discounts
* EVolve Car Scheme
* Employee Assistance Plan
* Mental health first aiders
* ShareBuy
* Enhanced parental leave schemes
Job Purpose
To source effectively maintenance‑related parts and services, ensuring exceptional customer experiences for operational teams using knowledge of mechanical, electrical, and instrumentation equipment. Deliver against identified maintenance and commercial KPIs, maintain a low work order cycle time, improve asset availability and reliability, and reduce overall lifecycle cost for water, wastewater, and bioresources assets.
Accountabilities & Responsibilities
* Triage initial work requests to ensure correct processes and sourcing routes.
* Coordinate sourcing activities for asset repairs or replacements, including supplier selection, capability assessment, quality improvement, and readiness, applying mechanical, instrumentation, and electrical expertise.
* Act as a technical liaison between suppliers, engineers, and operational managers.
* Develop and implement continuous improvement culture with suppliers to reduce repair cycle times while ensuring precision engineering techniques.
* Manage supplier performance – health and safety, cost evaluation, quality, and repair cycle times.
* Communicate with internal departments and external suppliers regarding technical work and commercial compliance.
* Build strong relationships with work management, asset management, field teams, inventory, purchasing, and commercial to deliver a reliability framework aligned with corporate objectives.
* Align organisational and behavioural changes to sustain a Reliability culture across UU in line with the Maintenance Reliability Strategy and Systems Thinking capabilities.
* Collaborate with Inventory to ensure correct BoMs for critical assets and unique reference numbers in the CMMS.
* Review, strip, and inspect reports, translate root cause of failures into improvement areas for PM, PdM, Asset Reliability, and Inventory strategies.
* Provide standardised data and analytics across Maintenance Sourcing for performance reports, risks, issues, contractor performance, and lessons learned.
* Carry out work assurance across approved contractors to ensure safety standards and correct capabilities, training, and tools.
Technical Skills & Experience
* Qualification to a minimum of City and Guilds, ONC, or Level 3 Diploma in Engineering with operational experience on mechanical, electrical, and instrumentation equipment.
* Strong engineering competence from an operational role on water industry assets.
* Procurement experience within any engineering company.
* Understanding of the lifecycle of a work order and its financial settlement effects.
* Experience in maintenance stock management – critical spares identification, stock holding, and effective logistics.
* Good understanding of operations and maintenance strategies and ability to react in production environments.
* Basic understanding of Asset Management – costs, monitoring, maintenance routines, and asset registration/de‑registration processes.
* Demonstrated focus on customer requirements and innovative approach to improving operational practices.
* Well‑developed analytical skills and track record in identifying issues and implementing solutions for technical maintenance.
* Proven communication and influencing skills at all organisational levels, translating company goals into day‑to‑day objectives.
* Resilient, tenacious, and personally driven to overcome operational obstacles with conflict‑management skills.
* Ability to build collaborative relations with operational staff, other departments, and key stakeholders, including framework contractors.
* Strong understanding of FMEA; review failure code data and propose corrective actions to reduce defects.
Essential Qualifications
* Minimum qualification of City and Guilds, ONC, or Level 3 Diploma in Engineering with operational experience as above.
* Full UK driving licence.
Other
We rely on every employee to ensure our customers receive the best possible service day in, day out. In return, we ensure that you will be well rewarded for your efforts, with salary, development opportunities, and a thriving career at UU.
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