Supply Chain Planning Manager in Swindon

Location: Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

Role details:

• Role: Head of Supply Chain Planning – Steam Thermal Solutions Manufacturing
• Reports to: General Manager, UK
• Team: ~35 across planning, procurement, materials, logistics & customer service (5 direct reports)
• Package: c. £120,000 base + 15–20% bonus + cash car allowance (£9,929) (Grade E)

Your mission: Own S&OP, forecasting, scheduling, inventory and supplier performance to hit OTTR/OTTC - without tying up cash.

Role purpose: To lead and manage end‑to‑end supply chain planning for a complex, high‑volume manufacturing site, ensuring that demand, capacity, materials and inventory are aligned to deliver customer service performance (on time and in full) while optimising cost, working capital and risk.

Key Responsibilities:

• Set and deliver the site supply chain planning strategy, balancing customer service, cost, cash, inventory and operational risk within an engineered manufacturing environment.
• Own and lead the site Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) cadence, ensuring a single integrated plan, aligned assumptions, clear decisions and documented trade‑offs.
• Improve forecast accuracy, schedule adherence and material availability through disciplined use of ERP/MRP processes, performance management, and data‑led problem solving.
• Strengthen supply resilience for critical components by driving supplier performance, continuity planning and effective collaboration with Strategic Procurement.
• Lead continuous improvement across planning and materials processes, establishing standard work, visual management and Lean problem‑solving practices that are sustained.
• Provide effective leadership and people management: develop capability, set clear priorities and standards, and build a high‑performing team culture.

Skills, knowledge and experience:

• Senior supply chain leadership: extensive experience leading end‑to‑end planning, materials and customer fulfilment within manufacturing, with clear evidence of improving service, cost and working capital outcomes in complex, constrained environments.
• Strategic and operational planning: ability to set a multi‑year planning strategy and translate it into an executable operating rhythm (daily/weekly/monthly), with strong governance, clear decision rights and disciplined follow‑through.
• S&OP mastery: proven track record of designing, embedding and continuously improving an effective S&OP / IBP process, including facilitation at leadership level, scenario planning, demand/supply balancing, and management of trade‑offs.
• Demand management and forecasting: strong understanding of forecasting methods, bias/accuracy management, and demand shaping, with the ability to challenge assumptions and improve data quality and behaviours that drive forecast performance.
• Capacity and scheduling excellence: deep expertise in capacity planning, sequencing, finite scheduling considerations and constraint management, with experience improving schedule adherence, plan attainment and lead‑time reliability.
• Materials planning and inventory optimisation: strong MRP/ERP discipline and knowledge of parameters, master data and planning policies; demonstrated ability to optimise inventory while protecting service (including obsolescence control and risk‑based stocking strategies).
• Supplier performance and resilience: experience driving supplier delivery performance and continuity planning for critical components, including escalation management, lead‑time reduction initiatives and risk mitigation (single‑source, long‑lead, quality and capacity risks).
• Financial and commercial acumen: ability to link planning decisions to P&L, working capital and customer outcomes; confident building business cases, setting targets and reporting performance through meaningful KPIs and dashboards.
• Department leadership and people management: experience leading a multi‑disciplinary planning/materials function (including managers and professionals/ specialists), with a strong track record in organisational design, role clarity, capability development, succession planning and performance management.
• Change leadership: ability to lead transformational change (process, operating model and systems), engage stakeholders through ambiguity, and embed sustainable ways of working (standard work, visual management and continuous improvement).
• Stakeholder influence: credible partner to senior leaders across Operations, Procurement, Sales/Customer Service and Finance; able to challenge constructively, negotiate priorities and secure timely decisions under pressure.
• Systems, data and governance: confident user of ERP/MRP planning tools with strong analytical capability (e.g., Excel/BI); able to improve master data quality, reporting integrity and planning compliance across the department.

Desirable: experience of thermal/pressure systems, batch or multi‑workstation operations, and/or multi‑site or global supply chains; professional qualifications such as APICS/CPIM, CIPS and Lean/Six Sigma; experience implementing planning improvements within ERP/APS tools and/or leading an IBP maturity journey.

Benefits:

You will receive a competitive salary (and a discretionary bonus), flexible working and excellent benefits including 27 days holiday allowance (before bank holidays), 3 days’ paid volunteering leave, comprehensive private healthcare, enhanced pension plan, life assurance, optional participation in a Share Ownership Plan, free onsite parking, flexible benefits, and access to a personal discounts’ portal.

We also offer a range of additional support and benefits through our Everyone is Included Group Inclusion Plan.

Everyone is Included at Spirax Group: We are passionate about creating inclusive and equitable working cultures where everyone can be themselves and achieve their full potential. For us, that means supportive teams and strong relationships where everyone’s contribution is valued across social and cultural backgrounds, ethnicities, ages, genders, gender identities, abilities, neurodiversity, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, and everything else that makes us human and unique.

We want everyone to be able to make their difference here, so we will always consider requests for flexible working. We know that everyone needs some extra help from time to time too, so we have introduced a range of additional benefits through our Group Inclusion Commitments. These include gender‑neutral parental leave, 15 days of extra paid caregiver leave, paid time off and support for anyone experiencing pregnancy loss or domestic abuse, menopause‑friendly workplace principles and more.

We are also a Disability Confident Committed Employer. If you would like to apply using this scheme, please select this option in our application form or notify our recruitment partners.

Spirax Group is a FTSE100 and FTSE4Good multi‑national industrial engineering Group with expertise in the control and management of steam, electric thermal solutions, peristaltic pumping and associated fluid technologies. With customers in 165 countries, we provide the solutions that sit behind the production of many items used in daily life, from baked beans to mobile phones.