Head Of Maintenance

We are recruiting on behalf of a leading food manufacturer for a Head of Maintenance & Reliability to oversee engineering strategy across a network of live and fully cooked (RTE) processing sites.

This is a critical leadership role with full responsibility for maintenance performance, reliability strategy, and budget control across nine manufacturing plants. The position offers the opportunity to shape long-term asset strategy, drive cost efficiencies, and build a best-in-class maintenance function within a complex, fast-paced food production environment.

Our client's mission is centred around creating great food and serving great moments, with a strong focus on operational excellence, sustainability, and people development.

The Role

As Head of Maintenance & Reliability, you will define and execute the group-wide maintenance strategy, ensuring high levels of equipment reliability, operational efficiency, and cost control. You will lead multi-site engineering teams, partner with senior stakeholders, and drive continuous improvement across both live processing and RTE facilities.

Key Responsibilities

Strategy & Reliability

• Develop and implement a group-wide maintenance and reliability strategy across 9 sites
• Drive asset performance, uptime, and operational efficiency through best-in-class maintenance practices
• Lead the deployment of preventive and predictive maintenance programmes (PM/PdM)
• Embed reliability-centred maintenance (RCM), TPM, and lean methodologies

Financial & Budget Control

• Own and manage the overall maintenance budget across all sites
• Identify and deliver significant cost-saving initiatives while supporting EBITDA performance
• Oversee CapEx planning, including asset lifecycle management and obsolescence mitigation
• Ensure strong ROI on engineering and reliability investments

Operational Leadership

• Lead and develop multi-site maintenance and reliability teams
• Standardise engineering practices, KPIs, and ways of working across the network
• Drive improvements in OEE, downtime reduction, and planned vs reactive maintenance ratios
• Collaborate closely with operations, technical, and supply chain functions

Compliance & Food Safety

• Ensure compliance with all relevant safety, food safety, and environmental standards
• Support a strong culture of safety and continuous improvement across all sites
• Align engineering practices with regulatory and customer requirements

Digital & Continuous Improvement

• Champion the use of digital tools, CMMS, and data analytics to enable predictive maintenance
• Drive innovation and modernisation of maintenance systems and processes
• Use data-driven insights to improve performance and decision-making

People & Culture

• Build and lead a high-performing engineering function across multiple locations
• Coach, mentor, and develop future leaders within the business
• Foster a culture of accountability, ownership, and continuous improvement

About You

• Proven experience in a senior maintenance/reliability leadership role within food manufacturing
• Multi-site leadership experience (ideally across complex, high-volume operations)
• Strong background in both fresh/live processing and/or RTE/fully cooked environments
• Demonstrated success in driving reliability improvements and cost savings at scale
• Experience managing large budgets and delivering against financial targets
• Strong knowledge of maintenance best practices (TPM, RCM, Lean, PM/PdM)
• Engineering degree (or equivalent experience) preferred
• Strong leadership, stakeholder management, and influencing skills