Group Capex Programme Lead

Finsbury Food Group; Cardiff; On-site; GBP 70,000 - 95,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Enhanced Pension Scheme

Death in Service Benefit

Employee Assistance Programme

Retail discounts

Refer a Friend Scheme

Learning & Development opportunities

Job summary

Finsbury Food Group is seeking a Group Capex Programme Lead to govern and optimise the group capital investment portfolio. You will oversee spend, milestones and benefits across multiple sites, aligning investments with automation, sustainability and growth objectives.

Working closely with Engineering, Operations, Finance, Procurement, and Supply Chain, you will set governance standards, drive stage-gate processes, and develop capability to improve project delivery across the network.

Qualifications

• Degree in Engineering, Manufacturing, Project Management or related discipline.
• Formal Project Management qualification is advantageous.
• Significant capital project experience in a manufacturing environment.
• Strong governance, risk, cost control and scheduling knowledge.

Responsibilities

• Lead governance and control of the capital investment portfolio across sites.
• Monitor spend, milestones, risks and benefits; report to senior leadership.
• Develop long‑term capital strategy; implement stage‑gate controls.
• Coach project managers and engineering teams for better delivery.
• Collaborate with Finance, Procurement, Operations and Supply Chain.

Skills

Capital projects

Stakeholder mgmt

Multi-site governance

Risk management

Performance tracking

Education

Engineering/Manufacturing/PM degree or equivalent

Job description

Location: UK – Multi-site (Regular travel across Finsbury sites)
Shift: Weekdays
Salary: Competitive

We have a new opportunity for a Group Capex Programme Lead to join our Group Engineering & Excellence team within Finsbury Food Group.
Finsbury Food Group is one of the UK’s leading speciality bakery manufacturers. We continually raise quality, innovation, and operational standards while building long‑term, trusted relationships across retail, foodservice, and brand partnerships. Our portfolio spans a wide range of bakery categories—from market‑leading retailer own‑brand products to beloved licensed and branded ranges—produced across our nationwide network of bakeries.
This is an exciting opportunity to take ownership of Finsbury’s Group Capital Expenditure programme, leading the governance, prioritisation, and successful delivery of strategic capital investment across our manufacturing sites. You’ll play a key role in shaping the future of our operations by ensuring investment supports business growth, automation, sustainability, operational excellence, and long‑term resilience.
Working closely with senior leaders across Engineering, Operations, Finance, Procurement, Supply Chain and Manufacturing, you’ll provide strategic oversight of our capital portfolio, ensuring projects are delivered safely, on time, within budget, and with measurable business benefits. You’ll establish clear governance, develop long‑term capital strategies, embed consistent project management standards, and build capability across the business to improve project delivery.
This role would suit an experienced programme or project leader who enjoys bringing structure to complex programmes, influencing senior stakeholders, and driving continuous improvement across a multi‑site manufacturing environment.

This is what you’ll actually do!
As Group Capex Programme Lead, you’ll lead the governance and control of Finsbury’s capital investment portfolio, ensuring every project is prioritised, managed effectively, and aligned with our strategic business objectives. You’ll oversee programme performance by monitoring spend, delivery milestones, risks, and benefit realisation, providing clear visibility to senior leadership and ensuring issues are addressed proactively.

You’ll develop and maintain the Group’s long‑term capital investment strategy, helping to shape future investment across automation, asset replacement, infrastructure, sustainability, energy efficiency, and manufacturing capability. Working alongside site engineering teams and business leaders, you’ll ensure investment decisions support operational performance, future growth, compliance, and cost reduction.

A key part of the role will involve standardising the way capital projects are managed across the Group. You’ll implement robust governance processes, develop practical project management tools and stage‑gate controls, and ensure projects are delivered with strong safety, food safety, legal, contractor management, and compliance standards throughout the entire project lifecycle.

You’ll partner with Finance, Procurement, Operations, Engineering, Supply Chain, Technical and site leadership teams to ensure projects remain commercially robust and strategically aligned. You’ll also provide early engineering input into New Product Innovation projects, helping teams understand infrastructure, capacity, equipment, and investment requirements before projects progress.

Alongside leading programme governance, you’ll coach and develop project managers and engineering teams, creating greater consistency, accountability, and project delivery capability across the business.

Your success will be measured through key KPIs including capital projects delivered within approved budgets and timescales, successful delivery of investment benefits, adoption of project governance standards, quality of reporting and forecasting, effective risk management, and continuous improvement in project delivery across the Group.

Ideally this is you!

• Degree qualified (or equivalent experience) in Engineering, Manufacturing, Project Management or a related discipline
• Formal Project Management qualification would be advantageous
• Significant experience leading capital projects or capital programmes within manufacturing, FMCG, food production, or a similarly complex operational environment
• Strong experience managing multi-site capital investment programmes and governance frameworks
• Excellent understanding of project management, programme governance, risk management, cost control, scheduling and benefit realisation
• Commercially aware with experience developing business cases and evaluating investment opportunities
• Strong stakeholder management skills with the ability to influence and challenge constructively at all levels
• Experience working collaboratively across Engineering, Operations, Finance, Procurement and Supply Chain functions
• Confident analysing complex project data and translating it into meaningful business insight
• Highly organised with the ability to manage multiple priorities across a diverse capital portfolio
• Passionate about continuous improvement, coaching others, and embedding consistent ways of working
• Willingness to travel regularly across Finsbury manufacturing sites

What’s in it for you!

• Enhanced Maternity & Paternity Leave to allow quality time with your new arrival!
• Enhanced Pension Scheme for our employees
• Death in Service Benefit
• Free Employee Assistance Programme (open to colleagues and their families)
• Retail discounts accessible via our Benefits Hub platform!
• Refer a Friend Scheme (up to £300 per referral – T&C’s 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. Head over to our LinkedIn page to find out more!

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. If this sounds like you, please get in contact to learn more!

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