Compliance Improvement Lead

Finsbury Food Group; Manchester; On-site; GBP 60,000 - 85,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Enhanced pension scheme

Employee Assistance Programme

Retail discounts via Benefits Hub

Company shop at sites

Refer a Friend Scheme

Learning & Development opportunities

Job summary

Kara Food Service, part of the Finsbury Food Group, in Manchester, seeks a Compliance Improvement Lead to drive health, safety, and environmental compliance on site. You will lead the site’s compliance strategy and partner with the leadership team to ensure safe, legal operations and sustainable improvements.

This hands-on, site-based role requires strong auditing and risk-management experience, plus the ability to influence at all levels.

Qualifications

• NEBOSH General Certificate or equivalent health and safety qualification.
• Experience in manufacturing health and safety compliance, ideally in bakery/FMCG.
• Experience supporting HSE management systems and audits.
• Knowledge of UK health and safety legislation and site-level compliance requirements.
• Experience with risk assessments, safe systems of work and inspections.
• Internal auditor experience or audit-support background.
• Experience with incident investigations and corrective actions.
• Familiarity with operational risk areas like machinery safety and fire safety.
• Good communication and project coordination skills.

Responsibilities

• Lead site-level compliance strategy aligned to Group standards and ESG objectives.
• Maintain robust HSE, Food Safety and Environmental Management Systems.
• Ensure duty holders meet legal and company obligations.
• Advise Site Lead and Leadership Team with actionable compliance insights.
• Lead site environmental compliance and support the sustainability plan.
• Drive closure of non-conformances from internal and external audits.
• Maintain site risk register and mitigation actions.
• Oversee incident reporting and investigations; drive learning.
• Report compliance performance metrics and identify improvement opportunities.
• Act as link to Regional/Group Compliance and share best practices.

Skills

NEBOSH General Certificate

HSE compliance

Auditing

Risk assessment

Incident investigations

Contractor management

Regulatory knowledge

Microsoft Office

Driving licence

Environmental management

Education

NEBOSH Diploma

NVQ Level 5/6 in Occupational Health and Safety

GradIOSH / IOSH status

Tools

Microsoft Visio

Job description

Park Seventeen, Whitefield, Manchester M45 8FJ, UK

Job Description

Posted Friday 7 August 2026 at 00:00

Location: Kara Food Service, Manchester

Shift: Monday to Friday

Salary: Competitive

Finsbury Food Group is a leading speciality bakery manufacturer. We constantly raise quality and efficiency standards, and build long-term relationships with major multiple retailers and the foodservice channel. Established in 1985, Kara offers a wide range of quality sweet and savoury bakery products, including both gourmet butter and vegan brioche buns, doughballs and teacakes. The Kara Bakery can bake over 1 million baps and burger buns every day.

We have an exciting opportunity for a Compliance Improvement Lead to join our Kara Food Service team in Manchester, part of the Finsbury Food Group.

This is a hands-on, site-based role with a strong focus on improvement. You’ll lead the delivery of compliance excellence across Health & Safety, Food Safety, Environmental Compliance, and Sustainability, working closely with the Site Leadership Team and partnering with Group and Regional Compliance colleagues.

Finsbury Food Group is a leading specialty bakery manufacturer. We constantly raise quality and efficiency standards and build long-term relationships within the foodservice channel. Finsbury offer a wide range of bakery products and are a leading frozen supplier into the Foodservice sector.

Your purpose is straightforward yet critical: to ensure our site operates safely, legally, and responsibly, while continually enhancing compliance maturity and supporting business performance.

This is what you’ll actually do!

As our Compliance Improvement Lead, you will:

• Lead the site-level compliance strategy, aligned to Group standards and ESG objectives
• Support and maintain robust HSE, Food Safety, and Environmental Management Systems
• Ensure appropriate duty holders are in place and capable of meeting legal and company obligations
• Act as a trusted partner to the Site Lead and Leadership Team, providing expert advice, insight, and challenge
• Lead site environmental compliance and support delivery of the site sustainability plan
• Support internal and external audit programmes, driving effective resolution of non-conformances and actions
• Maintain the site risk register, ensuring risks are identified, assessed, and mitigated
• Support and oversee incident reporting and investigations, ensuring learning is embedded
• Track and report compliance performance metrics, highlighting trends, risks, and improvement opportunities
• Act as the site link into Regional and Group Compliance, escalating issues where required and sharing best practices

This role is primarily site-based, with occasional travel to support audits, meetings, or wider compliance initiatives.

Ideally this is you!

• NEBOSH General Certificate or equivalent relevant health and safety qualification.
• Strong health and safety compliance experience within manufacturing, ideally food manufacturing, bakery, FMCG or another high-paced operational environment.
• Good understanding of UK health and safety legislation, regulatory expectations and site-level compliance requirements.
• Experience supporting or maintaining a HSE Management Systems.
• Experience carrying out or reviewing risk assessments, safe systems of work, inspections and audits.
• Internal auditor experience or practical experience supporting audit and assurance activity.
• Experience supporting incident investigations and corrective action tracking.
• Good understanding of key operational risk areas such as machinery safety, contractor control, workplace transport, manual handling, fire safety, hazardous substances, working at height and maintenance activity.
• Strong facilitation, organisation and project coordination skills, with good attention to detail.
• Effective written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to influence at all levels.
• Good Microsoft Office skills, particularly Word, Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint.
• Current full driving licence, if multi-site travel is required.
• NEBOSH Diploma, NVQ Level 5/6 in Occupational Health and Safety, or working towards equivalent.
• TechIOSH, GradIOSH or working towards Chartered Membership of IOSH.
• ISO 45001 internal auditor or lead auditor training.
• Experience in food manufacturing, bakery, chilled or ambient production environments.
• Experience with H&S KPI reporting, trend analysis and action tracking systems.
• Experience creating or revising H&S procedures, forms, guidance documents and training material.
• Practical knowledge of contractor management, CDM, PUWER, LOLER, COSHH, DSEAR, fire safety and statutory inspection arrangements.
• Experience supporting regulator, insurer or customer audit visits.
• Microsoft Visio or other process mapping experience.

What's in it for you?

• Enhanced Maternity & Paternity Leave to allow quality time with your new arrival!
• Enhanced Pension Scheme for our employees
• Free Employee Assistance Programme (open to colleagues and their families)
• Retail discounts accessible via our Benefits Hub platform!
• Company shop available at sites (heavily discounted, yummy products!)
• Refer a Friend Scheme (up to £300 per referral – t&cs dependent)
• Employee Recognition Awards Extensive Learning & Development opportunities (including opportunities for sponsored professional memberships and our own in-house development course!)
• An opportunity to be part of a fantastic, growing organisation.

Our vision is to be the leading specialty bakery group in the UK and we want the best people in place to achieve this. Our continued success is built entirely on the talented people who work here, so employee development is important to us because everyone is a valued member of the team, and we want every individual to have the skills and capabilities to achieve both your own personal goals and our business goals. We want good people to join our company, to help our company continue to go from strength to strength.

Park Seventeen, Whitefield, Manchester M45 8FJ, UK