Lead Engineer

Lead Engineer - Manufacturing
Location: Milton Keynes / Leighton Buzzard / Luton / Hemel Hempstead / Aylesbury
Salary: £55,000 per annum
Hours: Monday - Friday | Days | No Weekends | No Overtime
The Opportunity
We are currently recruiting for an experienced Lead Engineer to join an established and successful manufacturing business specialising in the production of high-quality packaging for the food and pharmaceutical industries.
This is an excellent opportunity for a skilled, hands-on Engineer with previous leadership experience to take responsibility for a small engineering team, providing technical guidance, day-to-day support and engineering direction across a busy manufacturing operation.
The successful candidate will ideally have an electrical engineering background, although applications from mechanically biased Engineers with sound electrical knowledge and experience will also be considered.
Reporting directly to the Engineering Manager, you will play a key role in maintaining plant reliability, improving equipment performance, supporting production and developing the capabilities of the engineering team.
Key Responsibilities
·Lead, manage and support a team of five Engineers, providing day-to-day guidance and technical direction.
·Carry out hands-on mechanical, electrical and electronic maintenance and repair work.
·Ensure all planned preventative maintenance (PPM) activities are completed effectively and on schedule.
·Diagnose faults, troubleshoot machinery and implement effective solutions using root cause analysis techniques.
·Monitor machinery and equipment to ensure safe and efficient operation.
·Identify and report equipment defects, taking immediate action to make unsafe machinery safe where necessary.
·Support production teams with machinery breakdowns, operational issues and product or job changeovers.
·Maintain and inspect plant equipment, including chillers, compressors and vacuum systems.
·Regularly inspect machine safety systems, guarding and interlocks.
·Coordinate engineering priorities and ensure effective allocation of workload.
·Complete relevant maintenance and shift reports.
·Manage engineering spare parts, including stock checks and ordering replacement components.
·Support continuous improvement initiatives, engineering projects and site safety improvement programmes.
·Work closely with the Engineering Manager and Production Team Leaders to improve operational efficiency and equipment reliability.
The Ideal Candidate
·Minimum NVQ Level 3 qualification in an engineering discipline or equivalent.
·Previous experience in a manufacturing or industrial engineering environment.
·Strong electrical engineering background, ideally with mechanical engineering capabilities.
·Alternatively, a mechanically biased engineering background with good electrical knowledge.
·Previous experience as a Lead Engineer, Senior Engineer, Engineering Supervisor or similar.
·Experience leading, supervising or supporting an engineering team.
·Strong fault-finding and problem-solving skills across mechanical, electrical and electronic systems.
·Good working knowledge of hydraulic and pneumatic systems.
·Experience with planned preventative maintenance and breakdown maintenance.
·Understanding of machinery safety and engineering compliance.
·Strong organisational, communication and leadership skills.
·A proactive, hands-on approach.
Experience with extrusion processing machinery would be advantageous but is not essential.
Salary & Benefits
·£55,000 basic annual salary.
·Monday - Thursday: 8:00am - 4:30pm.
·Friday: 8:00am - 4:00pm.
·Monday to Friday working pattern.
·No weekend working.
·No requirement for overtime.
·25 days annual holiday plus bank holidays.
·Workplace pension.
·Salary sacrifice scheme allowing the purchase of additional annual leave.
·Employee referral scheme.
Interested?
If you are an experienced Manufacturing Engineer looking to take the next step in your career, or an established Lead Engineer seeking a new challenge with a stable Monday-to-Friday working pattern, we would like to hear from you.
Apply today or contact us for a confidential discussion about this opportunity.