Cluster Technical Leader - Packaging & Innovation

DS Smith; Purston Jaglin; Hybrid; GBP 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

Pension scheme

Life assurance

Income protection

Employee Assistance Programme

25 days’ holiday

Cycle to work scheme

Employee discounts

Job summary

DS Smith is seeking an experienced Cluster Technical Manager to lead a newly established Cluster Technical function within our Design & Innovation team. You will shape how it operates, engages with customers, and delivers value across nine UK manufacturing sites, reporting to the Retail D&I Manager.

You will manage four Cluster Technical Specialists, drive technical strategy, governance, and proactive risk management, and partner with site Quality and Production teams to ensure consistency and

Qualifications

• Extensive experience (8+ years) in corrugated or packaging manufacturing across production, quality, technical or design disciplines.
• Deep understanding of corrugated manufacturing processes including both corrugator and conversion.
• Proven leadership experience, ideally with geographically dispersed or field-based teams.
• Track record of delivering measurable performance improvement in customer-facing technical, quality or CI roles.
• Strong customer-facing and stakeholder management skills with senior-level influence in a matrix organization.
• Experience using structured problem-solving tools such as 8D and Root Cause Analysis (RCA).
• Ability to turn technical data into actionable insights for decision making.

Responsibilities

• Define and deploy the cluster technical strategy aligned to D&I, Quality and Packaging priorities.
• Own customer technical governance with structured reviews.
• Lead escalation and governance for significant cross-site issues.
• Own KPI framework, monthly performance reviews and trend reporting.
• Coach and develop four Cluster Technical Specialists; manage resource planning and workload balancing.
• Build strong relationships with customers, cluster directors, site leaders and external suppliers.
• Aggregate cross-site trend analysis and drive prevention and improvement programs.
• Drive standardisation and product simplification across the cluster.
• Champion sustainability and a right-first-time culture.

Skills

Leadership

Stakeholder management

Analytical thinking

Problem solving

Communication

Strategic thinking

Project management

Education

Degree in Packaging

Six Sigma Green/Black Belt

Tools

ERP systems

CRM systems

QMS

Job description

DS Smith is seeking an experienced Cluster Technical Manager to lead a newly established Cluster Technical function within our Design & Innovation team. You will shape how it operates, engages with customers, and delivers value across nine UK manufacturing sites, reporting to the Retail D&I Manager.

You will manage four Cluster Technical Specialists, drive technical strategy, governance, and proactive risk management, and partner with site Quality and Production teams to ensure consistency and