Air Conditioning / Refrigeration Technical Services Manager in Chatham

If you're a Senior Refrigeration or Air Conditioning Engineer who's done years on the road - the traffic, the wear and tear on your hands, the unpredictable finish times - this is the role that gets you off the tools and home for dinner, without losing the seniority your experience has earned you.

Our client is an ambitious, fast-growing residential air conditioning installer. Every completed installation feeds into their maintenance department, and as they scale, that function needs senior technical depth it doesn't currently have. This role owns the technical and operational judgment behind every service and maintenance job - diagnosing issues, reviewing Engineer reports, deciding on parts and next steps, and being the answer when the team hits something they can't resolve themselves. Day-to-day booking and logging of calls is handled by their admin team. This role is what happens after the call is booked.

You'll oversee and direct the work of their field-based Service Engineers allocating jobs, setting priorities, and holding the team accountable for the standard and pace of their work. This is a position of real authority, not just technical advice from the sidelines. You'll be based at their premises, not on the road. They finish at 4:30pm.

Initial phase (target: c. 2 months): You'll work closely with the Commercial Director as they refine the department's workflows and systems. Your input is the ground truth here - what comes up routinely, where jobs actually go wrong, what a correct technical decision looks like in practice. They build the workflow and automation around what you tell them; you're not expected to design the systems yourself.

From there: You run the technical and operational side of the department day-to-day, reporting to the Managing Director.

What This Role Is Not:

• Not a call-booking or data-entry role - that's covered by the existing admin team
• Not a field role - your engineering days are behind you; your judgment isn't
• Not a trainee role - they're looking for depth of experience from day one

Benefits They Offer:

• Career growth opportunities
• Manufacturer and industry training
• 20 days holiday plus bank holidays
• Time off over Christmas
• Pension
• Office-based hours; Finish at 4:30pm

Salary and Hours: £60,000 - £65,000 depending on experience. FT; 40hrs per week. Start: 8:30am; Finish: 4:30pm. Office-Based (NOT remote)

Key Responsibilities:

• Technical Ownership: Review Engineer job sheets and reports, and decide what action each one needs. Diagnose faults accurately - distinguish product/manufacturing defects from installation or usage issues. Order parts based on accurate diagnosis, not guesswork. Allocate and oversee work for the field-based Service Engineers, holding them accountable for the standard and pace of their work. Own warranty decisions both ways - confirming cover and remedy for customers, and pursuing valid claims back to suppliers where a fault is genuinely a manufacturing defect. Speak directly with customers on technical matters when a query needs senior expertise. Feed verified fault patterns back to the Factory Manager where a pattern points to a manufacturing issue.
• Team Support: Be the go-to for technical questions the admin/booking team can't answer themselves. Support and upskill the team handling call booking and logging - you're not doing their job, you're the depth behind it.
• Systems Input (Initial Phase): Work with the Commercial Director to map how service and maintenance jobs actually flow today. Flag where current process or data entry breaks down and why. Sign off that new workflows reflect real-world practice before they go live.
• Department Ownership (from approx month 3): Own technical and operational decision-making for the service and maintenance function. Own the maintenance contract programme - renewals, attach rate, scheduled work. Set the standard for job sheet quality and fault reporting across the team.

Results Expected:

• Accurate fault diagnosis with minimal misdiagnosis/rework.
• Field Engineers' work meets the standard and pace this role holds them to.
• Warranty decisions are correct and defensible both ways - customer remedy and supplier recovery.
• New workflows signed off in phase one actually reflect how jobs really work, with no go-live surprises.

Standards To Be Met:

• Every job sheet reviewed and actioned within 24-48 hours of receipt.
• No customer-facing technical query goes unanswered without follow-up within two days.
• Genuine manufacturing defects are flagged to the Factory Manager, not absorbed silently as one-offs.

Requirements:

• Senior, demonstrable technical knowledge of refrigeration and air conditioning systems - this is the non-negotiable.
• Years of field experience is exactly what our client is looking for - this role exists for people who've earned the right to come off the road.
• Experience reviewing Engineer reports/job sheets and making accurate diagnostic and parts decisions from them.
• Comfortable explaining technical reasoning clearly to a non-technical team.
• Able to articulate process and workflow clearly, even without designing it yourself.
• Experience handling warranty claims, ideally both customer-facing and with manufacturer/supplier.

Other Requirements:

• Full UK driving licence - There may be the odd requirement to visit a customer premises.
• F-Gas Category 1 certification - Would be an advantage but not essential if expired.
• Actively fit - Putting out materials and spare parts for Service-based Engineers.