Maintenance Shift Leader

Blackfield Associates; England; On-site; GBP 45,000 - 60,000; Full time

Job summary

A manufacturing company in the United Kingdom is seeking an experienced Maintenance Shift Leader. This permanent night shift role involves leading a team of engineers, ensuring process excellence, and driving continuous improvement. The ideal candidate will possess strong leadership and communication skills, with a background in GMP manufacturing. Responsibilities include planning maintenance activities, monitoring performance, and fostering a collaborative culture. This active role requires a proactive approach to problem-solving and effective team development.

Qualifications

• Experience within a GMP manufacturing or production environment.
• Excellent problem-solving abilities and a continuous improvement mindset.
• Sound knowledge of Health & Safety and employee relations practices.

Responsibilities

• Leading, motivating, and developing a skilled team of engineers.
• Planning and managing maintenance activities to achieve set targets.
• Driving continuous improvement across equipment and processes.

Skills

Strong leadership skills

Communication skills

Problem-solving abilities

Continuous improvement mindset

IT literacy

Job description

Are you an experienced engineering leader who thrives in a fast‑paced manufacturing environment? Do you enjoy developing people, improving processes, and driving performance? If so, this could be the perfect next step in your career.

This is a permanent night shift role (4 on 4 off).

About the Role

We’re looking for a Maintenance Shift Leader to recruit, lead, and inspire a team of Manufacturing Support Engineers (and Tooling Technicians where relevant). You’ll create a high‑performing culture focused on prevention, continuous improvement, cost control and manufacturing excellence.

You’ll split your time between hands‑on engineering, coaching and mentoring, analysing performance data, and driving improvements in equipment uptime and process robustness.

What You’ll Be Doing

• Leading, motivating, and developing a skilled team of engineers
• Planning and managing maintenance activities to achieve quality, volume and cost targets
• Driving continuous improvement across equipment, processes and working practices
• Monitoring performance, analysing KPIs and identifying trends
• Ensuring regulatory, health & safety and quality standards are always met
• Acting as the primary point of contact for process support functions (IT, Development, Controls, Project Engineering)
• Supporting training and upskilling to ensure multi‑skilled engineering capability
• Maintaining high levels of process uptime and addressing major equipment or quality issues
• Fostering a positive, collaborative engineering culture

What You’ll Need

• Strong leadership, communication and people‑development skills
• Experience within a GMP manufacturing/ production environment
• Excellent problem‑solving abilities and a continuous improvement mindset
• IT literacy and confidence with data analysis
• Sound knowledge of Health & Safety and employee relations practices

You’ll operate across cleanroom, workshop and plant environments, using appropriate PPE. This is an active role where you’ll be on your feet around 50% of the time and occasionally handling controlled lifting tasks.

Travel may be required between nearby sites and occasionally to UK or overseas vendors.