Maintenance Manager

People Group; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 70,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

People Group is seeking a Maintenance Manager for Heat Networks/Utilities in East London. You will lead day-to-day operations, manage multiple energy centres, and drive safety, compliance, and performance across sites.

Responsibilities include coordinating shift teams, ensuring reliable heat and power supply, and supporting new connections and project delivery. A strong safety culture and stakeholder engagement are essential.

Qualifications

• Proven experience in operational or engineering management within energy or utilities.
• Strong organisational and planning capability.
• Experience managing multiple sites and teams.

Responsibilities

• Provide day-to-day operational oversight of energy centres and district network infrastructure.
• Lead shift engineering and maintenance teams, ensuring safety and performance.
• Manage budgets, cost control and contractor performance.
• Support project delivery, customer connections and network expansion.
• Ensure RAMS, permits to work and safe systems of work are followed.
• Drive continuous improvement and operational KPI monitoring.

Skills

Leadership

Health & Safety

Stakeholder management

Organisation

Prioritisation

Education

Engineering qualification (HNC/HND/Degree) advantageous

Tools

RAMS

Permits to work

Safe systems of work

Job description

Role: Maintenance Manager – (Heat Networks/Utilities)

Location: East London (Stratford) - Working Hours: 08:00 – 17:00 (Monday to Friday)

The Client:

My client is a prominent and forward-thinking energy infrastructure provider in the United Kingdom, specializing in the design, delivery, and long-term operation of large-scale decentralized low-carbon utility networks.

The company focuses heavily on urban district heating, cooling, and power solutions, managing critical assets that supply sustainable energy to thousands of residential and commercial properties. Renowned for its engineering excellence and commitment to the green transition, the business integrates cutting-edge technologies like industrial heat pumps and waste-heat recovery systems to drive urban centres toward a zero-carbon future.

The Role:

The Maintenance Manager will be accountable for the safe, efficient, and commercially effective operation of multiple district energy centres and associated network infrastructure across 3 energy centres in East London.

The role is responsible for leading both the shift engineering teams and day-based maintenance teams, ensuring consistent high performance, reliability, and compliance across all sites.

The post holder will drive a strong health, safety and compliance culture, ensuring all statutory, environmental and permit requirements are met.

In addition to operational delivery, the role plays a key part in, supporting future network expansion and development projects, facilitating new customer connections, delivering budgetary (P&L) performance, building a highly capable, motivated, and upskilled team

This is a site-based leadership role with flexibility to work across locations and occasionally remotely.

Key Responsibilities

Operational Delivery & Site Management

• Provide day-to-day operational oversight of all energy centres and district network infrastructure.
• Ensure continuity of heat, power and utility supply to all customers.
• Coordinate activities across shift teams and day maintenance functions. Ensure effective handovers, communication and operational control across all sites.
• Monitor operational performance and respond to plant issues, incidents or constraints.

Maintenance Coordination & Asset Performance

• Ensure delivery of planned preventative maintenance (PPM), reactive and corrective works.
• Work closely with Maintenance Manager / Coordinator to ensure work is correctly prioritised and scheduled Resources are effectively deployed Downtime is minimised
• Monitor asset reliability and implement actions to improve performance.
• Lead and promote a strong safety-first culture across all teams.
• Ensure compliance with Health & Safety legislation Environmental permits Company and contractual obligations
• Act as a key operational responsible person for site compliance.
• Ensure RAMS, permits to work and safe systems of work are adhered to.
• Lead incident response, investigations and corrective actions.

Commercial & Financial Performance (P&L)

• Take ownership of site operational budgets and cost control.
• Monitor and manage operational expenditure.
• Identify cost‑saving opportunities without impacting performance or safety.
• Contribute to overall contract performance and profitability.

Projects, Customer Connections & Growth

• Support delivery of new projects, upgrades and network expansion.
• Coordinate operational input into new customer connections
• Commissioning of new assets and System integration
• Work collaboratively with project and commercial teams.
• Lead, motivate and manage operational teams across multiple sites.
• Ensure teams are competent and engaged and delivering to expected standards
• Identify training needs and drive upskilling of engineers.
• Promote accountability and ownership at all levels.
• Support succession planning and development pathways.
• Act as a key contact for operational stakeholders.
• Communicate effectively with Internal teams and Customers, clients, Contractors and suppliers
• Support resolution of operational issues, service impacts or complaints.

Contractor & Supply Chain Management

• Oversee subcontractor activities and performance.
• Ensure all contractors work safely and in line with site requirements.
• Coordinate access, permits and site logistics.

Performance Monitoring & Continuous Improvement

• Monitor KPIs and operational metrics across all sites.
• Identify inefficiencies and implement improvements.
• Drive continuous improvement across operations and maintenance.
• Strong understanding of energy centre operations and district heating systems
• Knowledge of maintenance planning and asset management
• Understanding of compliance, environmental permits and safe systems of work
• Experience working with operational performance data and reporting

Soft Skills

• Strong leadership and people management skills
• Excellent organisational and coordination ability
• Effective communication and stakeholder management
• Ability to prioritise and manage multiple sites and workstreams
• Proactive, driven and solution‑focused approach

Experience & Qualifications

• Proven experience in an operational or engineering management role
• Experience within energy, utilities, or industrial environments
• Strong organisational and planning capability

Qualifications:

• Engineering qualification (HNC/HND/Degree) advantageous Working Arrangements