Support Services Director in Leeds

Established in 1994, OCU Group is one of the fastest growing utility engineering contractors in the UK, with a long successful track record in delivering customer‑focused civil engineering solutions. Working directly with many of the country’s leading blue‑chip power, water, telecoms and rail clients, we are looking for the very best talent to join our growing team. We pride ourselves on empowering our employees and offering opportunities for them to take control of their own personal development and career progression in a supportive environment.

OCU has a new opportunity for a Support Services Director to join us in the transformation and growth across the business. The Support Services Director plays a pivotal leadership role in ensuring the organisation operates smoothly, efficiently, and strategically across all non‑core operational functions. This role exists to enable excellence ensuring teams have the infrastructure, resources, systems, and environment they need to perform at their best.

Key Areas of Responsibility:

• Leadership, Management & Coordination: Provide strategic and operational leadership across multiple support functions, ensuring alignment, compliance, and efficiency.
• Customer Service Excellence: Develop, implement, and continuously improve customer service protocols across all service channels.
• People & Performance Management: Lead the recruitment, development, and performance management of support services staff.
• Financial & Contract Management: Develop and administer departmental budgets, ensuring effective resource allocation and cost efficiency.
• Data, Reporting & Continuous Improvement: Implement and maintain comprehensive data reporting systems to track operational and customer service performance.
• Interdepartmental Collaboration: Act as a key partner to other department heads, ensuring support services are embedded within organisational planning and strategy.
• Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity: Lead the development and coordination of disaster, incident recovery, and business continuity plans.

What Success Looks Like:

• Support functions operate seamlessly, proactively, and cost‑effectively.
• Teams feel supported, clear on expectations, and empowered to perform.
• Customers experience consistent, high‑quality service.
• The organisation’s infrastructure, systems, and services actively enable strategic growth.
• OCU values are clearly demonstrated in leadership behaviour and decision‑making.

The successful candidate will bring a strong and demonstrable background in leading complex support functions within a large, asset‑intensive organisation, ideally within the utilities, infrastructure, engineering, or similarly regulated environment.

Essential Experience:

• Proven experience at a senior leadership level managing and overseeing multiple support operational service functions within a large, geographically dispersed organisation.
• Extensive experience overseeing property and facilities management across operational depots, offices, and critical infrastructure sites.
• Strong experience in site security and critical infrastructure protection.
• Demonstrated leadership of customer service operations / call centres within a regulated or essential services environment.
• Experience overseeing or working closely with a National Operating Centre (NOC) or equivalent 24/7 operational control function.
• Proven track record in marketing, communications, and stakeholder engagement.
• Experience leading business continuity, disaster recovery, and emergency response planning.

Driven by values, powered by inclusion. At OCU, our values guide everything we do: integrity, collaboration, respect, innovation and one company united. They shape how we work with our clients, communities, and each other. We believe that inclusion is more than a principle — it’s the foundation of our success.

If you want to be part of a culture where values matter and inclusion is at the heart of everything we do apply now and help us shape the future together.