Department Lead

Connected Consulting Limited; Fort William; On-site; GBP 55,000 - 75,000; Full time

Job summary

Connected Consulting Limited is seeking a Lead Department Engineer to own day-to-day maintenance across a large-scale industrial site in Scotland. This hands-on leadership role requires coordinating resources, supporting engineering teams, and partnering with Operations to maintain plant reliability and performance.

You will oversee planned maintenance, urgent repairs, and continuous improvement initiatives, ensuring safe, efficient delivery and high standards.

Qualifications

• Proven leadership of engineering or maintenance teams.
• Experience with heavy industrial maintenance environments.
• Strong knowledge of planned, preventive and reliability-centred maintenance.
• Solid understanding of health, safety and environmental standards.
• Ability to drive continuous improvement in maintenance delivery.

Responsibilities

• Lead day-to-day maintenance activities across multiple plant areas.
• Coordinate planned, reactive and breakdown maintenance priorities.
• Manage and support Department Engineers, providing leadership and direction.
• Work closely with Operations to manage plant condition and recovery activities.
• Review maintenance performance, backlog, repeat failures and PM activities.
• Ensure maintenance work is delivered safely, efficiently and to a high standard.
• Support shutdowns, projects, plant modifications and new equipment installations.

Skills

Leadership

Maintenance management

Reliability-centred maintenance

Health & safety

Team leadership

Tools

CMMS

Job description

Do you enjoy being at the centre of a busy engineering operation, balancing priorities, leading teams, and keeping maintenance activities moving safely and efficiently?

We're looking for a Lead Department Engineer to take ownership of day-to-day maintenance delivery across a large-scale industrial site. This is a hands-on leadership role where you'll coordinate resources, support engineering teams, and work closely with operations to ensure plant reliability and performance remain on track.

What you'll be doing:

You'll be the person who brings everything together - planned maintenance, urgent repairs, engineering priorities, contractor activities, and continuous improvement initiatives.

• Lead day-to-day maintenance activities across multiple plant areas
• Coordinate planned, reactive and breakdown maintenance priorities
• Manage and support Department Engineers, providing leadership and direction
• Work closely with Operations to manage plant condition, priorities and recovery activities
• Review maintenance performance, backlog, repeat failures and preventative maintenance activities
• Ensure maintenance work is delivered safely, efficiently and to a high standard
• Support shutdowns, projects, plant modifications and new equipment installations

What we're looking for:

• Proven engineering maintenance experience within a heavy industrial environment
• Mechanical or Electrical Engineering background
• Previous experience leading engineering or maintenance teams
• Strong understanding of planned, reactive and reliability-centred maintenance
• Knowledge of maintenance management systems (CMMS)
• Good understanding of health, safety and environmental standards
• COMAH experience would be beneficial but isn't essential

Why this role?

This is an opportunity to influence maintenance delivery, plant reliability and team performance. Working alongside experienced engineering and operational teams, helping shape maintenance priorities and driving improvements that make a visible difference every day.

If this sounds like something you've done before, then I'd be keen to hear from you.