Head of Engineering in Warrington

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

• Engineering Management
  • 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.
  • You will proactively identify and deliver both strategic and tactical improvements across the business with a strong focus on: Client journey improvement, Lean operational processes, Return on Investment.
• Leadership Support
  • You will work closely with the General Managers, and wider leadership team to support effective operations across all locations.
  • This includes: Supporting annual budget delivery, Contributing to key business objectives, Maintaining compliance with ISO standards including 17025, Supporting strategic roadmap development, Improving team performance through training frameworks and on-the-job coaching, Embedding learning pathways to strengthen Continuous Improvement culture.

Key Deliverables

• Engineering Management
  • 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.
• Operational Excellence
  • Identify and deliver strategic and tactical business improvements.
  • Support the SCGM in delivering long-term strategic roadmaps.
  • Embed CI learning and development pathways across all operational levels.

Skills / Qualifications

• Essential
  • Experience managing a business with revenue of £10M+.
  • Proven leadership of engineering departments.
  • Strong project management experience across medium to large-scale projects.
  • Demonstrable success delivering business improvement initiatives.
  • 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 methodology (or equivalent CI tools).
• Desirable
  • PRINCE2 / Agile project management experience.
  • 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.

For more information on Element's BUILT division, please take a look at our e-brochure.

To apply please email derek.grist@element.com.

Company Overview

Element is one of the fastest growing testing, inspection and certification businesses in the world. Globally we have more than 9,000 brilliant minds operating from 270 sites across 30 countries. Together we share an ambitious purpose to ‘Make tomorrow safer than today’. When failure in use is not an option, we help customers make certain that their products, materials, processes and services are safe, compliant and fit for purpose. From early R&D, through complex regulatory approvals and into production, our global laboratory network of scientists, engineers, and technologists support customers to achieve assurance over product quality, sustainable outcomes, and market access. While we are proud of our global reach, working at Element feels like being part of a smaller company. We empower you to take charge of your career, and reward excellence and integrity with growth and development. Industries across the world depend on our care, attention to detail and the absolute accuracy of our work. The role we have to play in creating a safer world is much bigger than our organization.

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 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.