Mechanical Outage Planner in Manchester

Astute's Power Team are exclusively working with the SAICA Group to support the recruitment for a Mechanical Outage Planner for their Combined Heat & Power Plant located at their Papermill Facility in Manchester. As Mechanical Outage Planner you will be responsible for the planning and delivery of all mechanical plant outages across the facility. Ideally you'll be qualified with a HNC / HND in Mechanical Engineering with extensive Outage Planning experience. You'll be responsible for planning, coordinating and delivering safe, efficient maintenance activities across the site. Working closely with production, contractors and engineering teams, you'll ensure all work is fully prepared, resourced and executed to plan. You'll play a key role in outage and shutdown delivery, keeping schedules on track and risks under control.

Responsibilities and duties of the Mechanical Outage Planner role:

• Plan, schedule and coordinate maintenance work orders, outages and shutdowns across all disciplines.
• Ensure work orders are fully prepared in CMMS (Maximo), including scope, labour, materials, spare parts and documentation.
• Coordinate permits, isolations, inspections and safety preparations in line with site and production requirements.
• Plan and allocate internal and external labour, ensuring full resource coverage and contractor compliance.
• Manage contractor engagement, including access, inductions, certifications, quotations and purchase requests.
• Coordinate specialist support services, hire equipment, scaffolding, tools and lifting equipment.
• Develop shutdown plans and schedules (Gantt charts) and support shutdown execution and supervision when required.
• Liaise closely with production teams to align maintenance activities with operational plans.
• Monitor progress during shutdowns, escalating delays and proposing solutions as required.
• Maintain accurate work order data, manage backlog reporting and support continuous improvement in planning processes.
• Support the Mechanical Planner and participate in on-call support as required.

Professional qualifications:

• Ideally qualified with a minimum HNC / HND in Mechanical Engineering or equivalent.
• IOSH or NEBOSH would be advantageous.
• Time served Apprentice in Mechanical Engineering.
• SAP Super User would be advantageous.

Personal skills:

• Has at least five years experience working in an Engineering capacity on a similar heavy industry plant - ideally utilising high pressure steam systems such as Power Plants, Refineries, COMAH sites etc.
• Extensive experience utilising maintenance methodologies such as Root Cause Analysis to maximise asset availability.
• Experience with management of sub-contractors.
• Working knowledge of PSSR, LOLER, PUWER regulations.
• Extensive planning, scheduling and outage delivery experience.

Salary and benefits of the Mechanical Outage Planner role: Competitive salary. Full list of benefits available upon discussion.

Astute People are acting as an employment agency in relation to this vacancy. We do not discriminate on the grounds of age, race, gender, disability, creed or sexual orientation and comply with all relevant UK legislation. We encourage applications from individuals from all backgrounds but candidates must be able to demonstrate their ability to work in the UK. Astute is also committed to the government's Disability Confident Employer initiative. We endeavour to get back to everyone, however, if you have not heard anything after 7 days, please consider your application unsuccessful.