Operations & Maintenance Manager

Ancala Water Services; Dudley; Hybrid; GBP 57,000; Full time

Job summary

A prominent utility services company is seeking an Operations & Maintenance Manager for a hybrid role covering North Wales and West Midlands. The successful candidate will possess strong leadership skills and technical knowledge in the water industry. Key responsibilities include managing operations teams, improving processes, and ensuring compliance with regulations. The position offers a competitive salary of circa £57,000, annual bonus, and numerous benefits including a healthcare plan and generous leave policies.

Benefits

28 days annual leave plus bank holidays

Car allowance

Westfield healthcare plan

Flexibility in working hours

Excellent pension scheme

Qualifications

• Proven experience in the water and wastewater operations and maintenance environment.
• IOSH qualification or equivalent is advantageous.
• Ability to deliver operational requirements to meet targets.
• Experience managing large budgets with financial insight.

Responsibilities

• Improve processes across operations and maintenance team.
• Manage a field-based operations team effectively.
• Promote health, safety, environment, and wellbeing culture.
• Act as Subject Matter Expert and advise on best practices.
• Build and maintain relationships with internal and external stakeholders.

Skills

Technical water industry knowledge

Health and Safety management

IT skills (MS Office)

Financial and commercial acumen

Leadership and team management

Excellent communication

Job description

About The Role

Role: Operations & Maintenance Manager (Water Industry)

Salary: circa £57,000 per annum + up to 20% annual bonus

Location: Hybrid: North Wales & West Midlands - regular site visits and homeworking across your region

Role Type: Permanent, Full-Time, 37 hours per week (Monday to Friday) plus 1 in 7 standby rota

Benefits: 28 days annual leave plus bank holidays, birthday day off, generous annual incentive scheme at 20%, car allowance, Westfield healthcare plan for you and your dependents, excellent pension scheme, buy/sell annual leave, flexible working hours, life assurance, critical illness cover, enhanced maternity and paternity benefits, comprehensive health & wellbeing programme and lots more!

From Penzance to Portsmouth and Caernarfon to Coventry, the Operations and Maintenance team are a busy unit who make sure over 1,000 MOD clean and wastewater sites run to standard 365 days a year. To make sure we continue delivering a first‑class service time after time, we are now seeking a water industry specialist to lead our dedicated and supportive Operations and Maintenance team in our North West region (check out the Areas we operate - Ancala Water Services).

We are seeking individuals who are driven, resilient and water‑industry proficient to allow you to support the day‑to‑day operations and maintenance of our clean and wastewater assets. Using your expertise in a similar role – perhaps gained with one of the SU’s or perhaps within a smaller, private company – you’ll be pivotal in delivering our operational objectives in the most efficient and cost‑effective way possible. You’ll use your wealth of experience in a similar role to minimise operational disruption, to seek and implement improvements and lead our critical O&M team across our large operational area. On occasion, you’ll deputise for our team of seven Operations and Maintenance Managers to ensure we can continue to provide an excellent service to our valued customers. You will be key in ensuring that our assets across the MOD estate comply with regulatory and contractual obligations, as well as keeping our customers at the core of all we do. Our ideal candidate will be a proven people manager with stacks of water industry experience and a flair for continuous improvement. To give you a central point within your vast region, you’ll ideally be based in the West Midlands and the surrounding areas but if you’re a little outside, we’d still be thrilled to hear from you!

Role Responsibilities:

• Assessing and improving current processes across our operations and maintenance team
• Effective leadership and management of a field‑based operations team, along with effective and timely budget management
• Driving forward a strong health, safety, environment and wellbeing culture
• Acting as an area Subject Matter Expert for Ancala Water Services and advising upon best practice solutions
• Building strong, trusted relationships with the wider business such as Asset Management, Project Management and Commercial teams
• Managing and developing relationships with external partners and representing AWS to key stakeholders where required

Essential Skill, Knowledge and Experience:

• Technical water industry knowledge and experience gained within a water and wastewater operations and maintenance environment
• Demonstrable understanding and experience of H&S practices to include managing contractors (IOSH qualified or equivalent)
• Experienced with coordinating internal project work and supply chain project work in a reactive environment
• Skilled and confident IT skills to include MS Office at an intermediate level, proficiency with mobile devices and experience with different software packages and databases
• Experience of managing large budgets, along with strong financial and commercial acumen
• Effective leadership of field‑based teams whilst promoting a positive team and work culture
• Ability to deliver operational requirements to meet challenging targets and deadlines
• Confident and persuasive communicator with all hierarchical levels and able to explain technical information clearly
• Skilled with developing and maintain strong relationships to establish reliability, credibility and expertise

About you:

Due to the nature of sites on which we operate, the successful candidate must:

• Meet the security vetting requirements for the role which includes, but is not limited to, the successful candidate being a full‑time resident of the UK for the past 5 years and an enhanced DBS Check
• Possess a valid driving licence and be comfortable driving to different sites regularly across our operational areas. There will also be overnight stays on occasion

We will be reviewing applications on a rolling basis and if you have any further questions, please contact us:[e-mail]