HPS ECI Manager in Stockport

The EC&I Engineering Manager will lead the Electrical, Instrumentation & Control discipline across HPS. This dual‑role position combines technical leadership and team management with a strategic commercial focus — supporting proposal development, client engagement, and the wider growth of the business.

You will be responsible for managing the EC&I department’s operations, developing talent, ensuring project delivery, and actively contributing to client satisfaction and commercial success. In the early stages of the role, the EC&I Engineering Manager is expected to spend approximately 80% of their time on fee‑earning project work. This will naturally be reviewed as the department and workload grow.

EC&I Department Management

• Line management for 4 EC&I engineers, 4 designers, and 1 apprentice designer.
• Weekly task alignment, workload balancing, and milestone tracking.
• Facilitate weekly 30‑minute team meetings to assess progress and priorities.
• Conduct monthly one‑to‑one sessions and annual performance appraisals.
• Guide, mentor, and support apprentices by providing regular feedback and opportunities for skill development, ensuring alignment with both departmental goals and engineering standards.

Project Alignment

• Collaborate with Project Managers during project kick‑off to align scope, resourcing, and deliverables.
• Assist project managers with identifying and mitigating project delivery risks.
• Ongoing support and oversight of EC&I resource deployment across projects.

Technical Assurance & Design Governance

• Implement and maintain HPS EC&I checking and approval procedures in line with company‑wide technical assurance requirements.
• Act as EC&I discipline approver for defined deliverables, delegating checking responsibilities appropriately within the team.
• Ensure EC&I designs are consistently safe, compliant, and phase‑appropriate across all projects.
• Escalate novel, high‑risk, or safety‑critical technical issues to the Technical Director.

Planning & Reporting

• Participate in weekly resource planning with the Operations Director and the Director of Projects.
• Attend quarterly management meetings to review departmental performance, inter‑discipline coordination, and continuous improvement opportunities. Present departmental KPIs, providing analysis of trends, opportunities, and risks.

Performance Management

• Define and track department‑specific Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
• Drive process improvements and maintain high‑quality technical delivery.

Recruitment & Growth

• Support recruitment of EC&I personnel, including assessing technical competencies.
• Mentor and develop the team to build future leadership and technical expertise.

Culture

• Embrace and actively promote company values through collaboration, ethical behaviour, and teamwork.
• Build trust with client teams to make HPS the partner of choice through project delivery excellence.

EC&I Engineering

• Lead assigned projects from an EC&I perspective, overseeing engineering deliverables and quality.
• Recognise that EC&I professionals typically specialise in one or two disciplines and therefore must demonstrate a sound technical grounding and working understanding of core principles across their weaker EC&I areas.
• Able to competently review, challenge, and integrate Electrical, Instrumentation and Control designs by understanding intent, limitations, and interfaces, even where not a subject‑matter expert.
• Demonstrates sufficient cross‑discipline technical awareness to identify risk, ensure design coherence, and make informed engineering decisions across the full EC&I scope.
• Holds a good working knowledge of hazardous area design (ATEX/BS EN 60079) sufficient to act as design authority, review compliance and provide hands‑on support where required.
• Demonstrates a sound understanding of functional safety to BS EN 61511, enabling effective oversight of safety lifecycle activities and informed technical decision‑making.
• Has a strong appreciation of EC&I requirements on GMP projects, including design intent, documentation standards and verification expectations.
• Attend weekly internal design reviews to report progress and identify technical or commercial risks.
• Provide guidance to designers and review technical outputs before submission.
• Lead external design reviews with clients to ensure alignment and satisfaction.
• Input into project planning: man‑hour estimation, scheduling and cost reporting.
• Ensure all designs meet applicable UK, EU, and client‑specific standards and regulations.

Commercial, Client & Continuous Improvement

• Lead EC&I input on proposal development: attend client sites for initial sales meetings, contribute to scope definitions, and produce man‑hour estimates.
• Provide strategic input into business development efforts to win new work and retain existing clients.
• Identify and follow up additional opportunities emerging from ongoing projects.

Client Relationship Management

• Build and maintain long‑term relationships with key clients, understanding their needs and aligning HPS services accordingly.
• Maintain strong client satisfaction throughout project delivery, ensuring effective communication and professional representation of HPS.

Continuous Improvement

• Capture lessons learned across projects and implement improvement actions within the department.
• Foster and promote a culture of accountability, client focus and commercial awareness throughout the team.

Essential skills and qualifications

• Demonstrable experience leading and managing engineering teams.
• Proven ability to act as technical lead / design authority on EC&I projects.
• Degree‑qualified in Electrical Engineering or a related discipline.
• Strong experience in EC&I engineering within process industries.
• Track record of successful multi‑disciplinary project delivery.
• Ability to contribute to and review commercial proposals and client scope documents.
• Comfortable engaging with clients and internal stakeholders at all levels.
• Knowledge of relevant UK and EU design regulations and standards.
• Familiarity with project controls including scheduling, cost tracking and reporting.

Desirable skills and qualifications

• Experience of functional safety design and good working knowledge of BS EN 61508/61511. TUV functional safety qualification or similar.
• Experience of ATEX hazardous area design and good working knowledge of BS EN 60079. CompEx Ex12 qualification or similar.

Working Conditions

• Full‑time position with occasional travel to project sites.
• Flexitime.
• Flexibility in work hours may be required to accommodate deadlines and international time zones.
• Company health shield provided.
• Package: Performance‑related bonus, pension, flexible working and progression opportunity within a growing consultancy.