Head of Engineering in High Wycombe

Warringtonfire, part of Element, is seeking a Head of Engineering primarily based in the Warrington area. Reporting to the Senior Cluster General Manager, this senior leadership role will oversee a broad range of responsibilities within the Fire Testing division of the Built business. The position will require occasional travel to sites in High Wycombe and Ghent, Belgium. This is an excellent opportunity to join a leading Testing, Inspection and Certification company committed to Making Tomorrow Safer Than Today.

Responsibilities

• You will be accountable for the uptime, legal compliance, and operational reliability of plant equipment and infrastructure, with a primary focus on the Warrington locations while supporting all laboratory sites.
• Ensuring robust legal compliance through inspections, audits, and corrective actions.
• Managing preventative maintenance programmes and reactive maintenance activities.
• Maintaining operational reliability to support an On-Time Delivery (OTD) target of 95%.
• Coordinating third-party servicing and internal maintenance activities.
• Improving and maintaining the CMMS (Computerised Maintenance Management System).
• Developing internal team capability to ensure the right balance of in-house expertise and third-party support.
• Managing critical spares and resource planning to minimise downtime.
• Identifying opportunities to improve engineering processes through innovation and technology adoption.

Operational Excellence

• You will lead continuous improvement initiatives across laboratory operations, ensuring alignment with scheme, accreditation, and operational requirements.
• Areas of focus include:

• Testing processes.
• Safe operating procedures.
• Test reporting.
• Invoicing activities.
• Standardisation and consistency across all sites.
• Building and embedding a strong continuous improvement culture.

• Lean operational processes.
• Return on Investment.
• Leadership Support.

• Contributing to key business objectives.
• Maintaining compliance with ISO standards including 17025.
• Improving team performance through training frameworks and on-the-job coaching.
• Embedding learning pathways to strengthen Continuous Improvement culture.
• Maintain full legal compliance across sites.
• Deliver planned maintenance with minimal disruption to operations.
• Ensure effective reactive maintenance processes with strong KPI reporting.
• Maintain plant reliability to support OTD targets.
• Improve CMMS systems and preventative maintenance frameworks.

Skills / Qualifications

• Experience managing a business with revenue of £10M+.
• Proven leadership of engineering departments.
• Strong project management experience across medium to large-scale projects.
• Strong people management and development skills.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management.
• Mechanical or Electrical Engineering degree.
• Knowledge of compliance standards including: ISO 17025 / ISO 17065 / ISO 45001.
• Lean Six Sigma qualification (or equivalent) with practical application examples.
• Experience within either the Testing, Inspection & Certification sector or Manufacturing or Construction.
• Demonstrable experience of end-to-end operational processes.

Why Join Us?

This is a fantastic opportunity to step into a high-impact leadership role within a globally recognised organisation and play a key role in driving operational excellence, engineering performance, and future innovation across multiple laboratory sites.

Benefits Of Working At Element

• 33 days annual holiday, consisting of 25 days annual holiday and 8 days public.
• x4 Life Assurance.
• Legal & General Pension scheme with total contributions up to 12%.
• Flexible Working.
• Cycle Scheme.
• Recommend a Friend Bonus.
• Perks At Work Discount Scheme.
• Car Allowance.

Diversity Statement

At Element, we always take pride in putting our people first. We are an equal opportunity employer that recognises diversity and inclusion as fundamental to our Vision of becoming “the world’s most trusted testing partner”. All suitably qualified candidates will receive consideration for employment on the basis of objective work related criteria and without regard for the following: age, disability, ethnic origin, gender, marital status, race, religion, responsibility of dependents, sexual orientation, or gender identity or other characteristics in accordance with the applicable governing laws.