Head of Site

Babcock International; Walsall; Hybrid; GBP 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Matched contribution pension scheme

Digital GP access

Employee shopping portal

Payment of Professional Fees

Reservists in the armed forces leave

Holiday Trading

Be Kind Day

Job summary

Babcock is seeking a Head of Site at its Walsall operation to lead safe, secure and effective site performance across production and projects. You will set priorities, drive governance and continuous improvement while managing customer accounts and enabling functions in a high-profile role.

Based onsite with hybrid options, the role requires senior leadership in manufacturing/engineering, strong contract oversight and financial acumen to deliver contractual outputs while maintaining safety and

Qualifications

• Significant senior leadership experience within manufacturing or defence.
• Accountability for a site or major operation with safety, quality and cost focus.
• Strong contract and customer management experience with stakeholder priorities.

Responsibilities

• Lead safe, secure and effective leadership of the Walsall operation.
• Provide visible leadership and set clear priorities for sustainable delivery.
• Strengthen operational governance, performance measures and recovery plans.
• Drive organisational change while maintaining engagement and continuity.
• Embed operational excellence and standardised ways of working across the site.

Skills

Senior leadership

Manufacturing

Defence sector

Budget management

Contract management

Job description

Select how often (in days) to receive an alert:

Head of Site

Location:

Walsall, GB, WS2 8LD

Onsite or Hybrid:

Job Title: Head of Site

Location: Walsall, West Midlands + Hybrid Working Arrangement

Compensation: Competitive + Benefits + Car Allowance

Role Type: Full time / Permanent

Role ID: SF76948

Lead a critical operation. Drive performance. Shape the future of defence engineering.

At Babcock, we're working to create a safe and secure world, together. If you join us, you can play your part as a Head of Site at our Walsall site, near Walsall, West Midlands.

The role

As a Head of Site, you'll be accountable for the safe, secure and effective leadership of the Babcock Walsall operation. This is a high-profile leadership role with end-to-end oversight of site performance across production, projects, customer accounts and enabling functions.

You'll provide visible leadership, set clear priorities and create the conditions for sustainable delivery, growth and continuous improvement. Working with a cross-functional leadership team, you'll strengthen operational control, drive performance and build confidence with customers, colleagues and stakeholders. This is an exciting opportunity to make a lasting impact within a business that delivers critical capabilities supporting the UK's defence and security infrastructure, while developing your own leadership career within a global engineering organisation.

Day-to-day you'll be:

• Creating stability through visible, values-led leadership across the site
• Leading overall site performance to ensure safe, secure, compliant and efficient delivery against customer and business commitments
• Establishing robust operational governance, performance measures, review cycles and recovery plans
• Driving organisational and operational change while maintaining colleague engagement and business continuity
• Embedding operational excellence, continuous improvement and standardised ways of working across the site

The role is based onsite at Walsall. The set working times are Monday to Friday, with an early finish on Friday, totalling 37 hours per week. Hybrid working patterns are available.

Essential experience of the Head of Site:

• Significant senior leadership experience within manufacturing, engineering, defence or another complex operational environment
• Proven accountability for a site, major operation, complex programme or portfolio with responsibility for safety, quality, delivery, cost and people
• Strong contract and customer management experience, including delivery of contractual outputs and management of competing stakeholder priorities
• Commercial and financial acumen, including budget accountability, forecasting, risk management and performance improvement
• Experience leading multidisciplinary teams through challenge, uncertainty and organisational change

Qualifications for the Head of Site:

We value difference and don’t have a fixed idea when it comes to background or education, provided you can show the required level of experience and/or willingness to learn then we would like to hear from you.

Security Clearance

The successful candidate must be able to achieve and maintain Security Check (SC) / NPPV security clearance for this role.

Many of the positions within our company are subject to national security clearance and Trade Control restrictions. This means that your eligibility for certain roles may be affected by your place of birth, nationality, current or former citizenship, and any residency you hold or have held. Further details are available at United Kingdom Security Vetting: clearance levels - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) .

What we offer

• Matched contribution pension scheme, with life assurance
• Access to a Digital GP, annual health check, and nutritional consultations through Aviva DigiCare+
• Employee shopping savings portal
• Payment of Professional Fees
• Reservists in the armed forces receive 10-days special paid leave
• Holiday Trading is a benefit that allows UK Babcock employees to buy additional leave or to sell up to one working week of annual leave from their annual entitlement. This Window opens February through to March annually.
• 'Be Kind Day' enables employees to take one working day's paid leave a year (or equivalent hours) to undertake volunteering work with their chosen organisation or registered charity

Babcock

We're Babcock — a global FTSE 100 organisation with over 29,000 people working together to make a difference.

Here, you’ll be part of something bigger. From initial design to final decommissioning, your work will contribute to products and services that are essential to national security and public infrastructure. Together, we’re building a future that lasts — not just through the impact we make, but through meaningful careers that respect your work-life balance.

We call that lifetime engineering.

Join us and see how far we can go, together.

We are a disability confident committed employer. If you have a disability or need any reasonable adjustments during the application and selection stages, please email [e-mail] with the subject header 'Reasonable adjustments requirement'. We’re committed to building an inclusive culture where everyone’s free to thrive. We are happy to talk about flexible working – please ask about alternative patterns of work at interview.

Job Segment: Manufacturing Engineer, Engineer, Engineering