Programme Manager - Munitions

Onodrim Industries; Greater London; On-site; GBP 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Onodrim is building Europe's largest defence and industrial platform. The Programme Manager for Munitions will own end-to-end programmes from scope to acceptance, coordinating budgets, schedules, suppliers and authorities across Europe while prioritising safety and regulatory compliance.

You'll work with portfolio companies, forward deployed operators and leadership to translate strategic demand into measurable capability, ensuring licensing and safety remain core to every plan.

Qualifications

• Experience in munitions or energetic materials is essential.
• Minimum 2 years running programmes with budgets, schedules and authorities.
• Clear, direct written and spoken English communication.
• Willingness to travel across Europe and work across multiple sites.
• Right to work in the EU/UK and eligible for national security clearance.

Responsibilities

• Own scope, plan, budget, risk register and schedule for each programme.
• Turn customer need or capacity gap into requirements and acceptance criteria.
• Coordinate plants, suppliers, test authorities, institutes and partners.
• Chair design/process reviews and assess test data and safety documents.
• Plan and execute safety testing, qualification campaigns and trials.
• Ensure explosive safety, licensing, storage and export controls are integrated.
• Support the deal team with technical and operational diligence.
• Translate programme outcomes into scalable improvements within portfolio.

Skills

Programme management

Budgeting

Stakeholder management

English communication

Travel readiness

Education

Degree in chemistry / chemical engineering / mechanical / aerospace or related discipline

Job description

About the role

Onodrim is building Europe's largest defence and industrial platform. We acquire specialist manufacturers in critical defence and dual-use supply chains, then invest behind their growth with capital, technology and operating know-how.

Demand for artillery ammunition, guided and loitering munitions, warheads and the energetic materials underneath them has outrun what Europe can produce, and the bottlenecks sit deep in the supply chain. The Programme Manager for Munitions runs the programmes that turn that intent into delivered capability. You'll be assigned to specific programmes - a capacity build-out at a portfolio company, a qualification campaign, a joint development with a partner or a research institute, a supply-chain integration - and own them from scope to acceptance.

In this role you'll need enough depth in warheads, energetic materials or munitions production to understand the key supply-chain bottlenecks in production and inform the direction of investment; enough programme discipline to keep budget, timeline, suppliers, authorities and customers aligned when all of them are moving; and the instinct to treat explosive safety and licensing as part of the plan, not something that happens to it. You'll spend time on plant floors, at test ranges and at partner sites, not only in meetings.

What you'll do

• Run the programme. Own scope, plan, budget, risk register and schedule for each programme you're assigned; report status weekly in numbers, elevate early, and land it.
• Write the requirement. Turn a customer need, a capacity gap or a strategic decision into a requirement, a qualification plan and acceptance criteria – performance, safety, rate, cost – that engineers can build to and authorities can sign off.
• Manage the parties. Coordinate plants, raw-material and component suppliers, test authorities, research institutes, partner companies and portfolio-company teams; negotiate statements of work, hold them to milestones and resolve conflicts.
• Judge the engineering. Chair design and process reviews, read test, qualification and safety data, challenge formulation, filling and assembly choices, and decide when something is good enough to proceed.
• Run the qualification and trials. Plan and execute safety testing, qualification campaigns and firing trials with the relevant national and NATO authorities, and turn the results into decisions.
• Hold the safety and compliance bar. Make explosive safety, hazard classification, licensing, storage, transport and export control part of every plan and every review on your programme.
• Support the deal team. Contribute the munitions-domain view to technical and operational diligence of acquisition targets and partnerships: what they can actually make, safely and repeatably, and what it would take to scale it.
• Bridge to the portfolio. Take programme outcomes into the companies we own – a product to industrialise, a line to bring up, a process to fix – and work with their teams and our Forward Deployed Operators to make it stick.
• Feed the strategy. Bring what you learn on the programme – technology, suppliers, customers, competitors, raw-material risk – back to the leadership team to shape what Onodrim invests in next.

What you'll bring

• A degree in chemistry, chemical engineering, mechanical or aerospace engineering, physics or a closely related discipline.
• 5+ years in munitions field bringing deep understanding of the market as well as warhead designs, energetic materials or munitions production, ideally, including at least 3 years hands‑on as an engineer before moving into programme or product responsibility.
• At least 2 years running programmes or projects with real ownership: budget, schedule, suppliers, authorities and a customer who signs off.
• Working knowledge of energetic materials and their industrial base – secondary explosives, PBX and melt‑cast fills, propellants, components – and where European supply is concentrated or fragile.
• Familiarity with munitions qualification and safety frameworks, hazard classification and national explosives licensing, and experience working with the authorities that administer them.
• Experience with test-range trials or qualification campaigns, ideally with a defence customer or national test authority.
• Comfort managing external partners – plants, suppliers, institutes, subcontractors – and holding them to commitments.
• Structured, numbers‑driven working style: risk registers, test plans and status reports that someone can act on.
• Clear, direct communication in English, written and spoken, with engineers, plant managers, authorities and customers alike.
• Willingness to travel extensively across Europe – plants, test ranges, partners, portfolio companies.
• Right to work in Switzerland or the EU, and eligibility for a national security clearance in at least one of our operating countries.

Nice to have

• We operate our business in English; knowledge of a European language other than English is beneficial.
• Military service in an ammunition technical, EOD, artillery or ordnance role, or time as a user of the systems you'd be working on.
• An existing clearance.
• Experience with drone and loitering‑munition payloads, low‑cost effectors for counter‑UAS, or guided‑munition integration.
• Experience bringing a filling line, energetics process or munitions production line up to rate, or working alongside a manufacturer that did.Experience on the supplier side of a prime, NSPA or national procurement – proposal, qualification, framework contracts.
• Exposure to export control (EU dual‑use, ITAR/EAR) and classified‑programme handling.
• Experience in a start‑up or small team where you did whatever the programme needed.