Head of Quality - Defence and Aerospace Manufacturing

Head of Quality Defence & Aerospace Manufacturing £75,000 £85,000 BUPA 31 Days Holiday Flexible Hours Central Scotland Were recruiting for a highly successful Tier 1 manufacturer supplying technically complex, mission-critical products into some of the worlds largest Defence & Aerospace organisations. The business is experiencing significant growth and increasing production volumes. As a result, they are looking to appoint a Head of Quality who can lead an established quality function and help take technical quality capability, standards and performance to the next level. This is a Senior Management position with responsibility for a team of approximately 12 across Quality Engineering, Supplier Quality and Laboratory functions.

The Role Youll take overall leadership of the Quality function, but the emphasis here goes considerably beyond systems, audits and compliance. The business operates within an extremely demanding technical environment where product performance, reliability and customer confidence are critical.

• Leading, coaching and developing a multidisciplinary Quality team
• Creating the right culture, environment and standards across the function
• Driving improvements in root cause analysis, fault finding and failure analysis
• Improving reaction times and the quality of response when technical issues occur
• Leading risk management, FMEA and preventative quality activity
• Supporting investigation of complex product and process issues
• Developing Quality Engineering capability as production volumes increase
• Overseeing non-conformance, product conformance and qualification activity
• Working closely with Engineering, Manufacturing, Supply Chain and Operations
• Providing credible technical leadership during customer visits and technical discussions
• Supporting the continued development of an already established aerospace quality management system

The Person The technical requirement is important. Ideally, youll be degree qualified in Mechanical Engineering , although Electrical Engineering, Chemical Engineering or another highly relevant technical discipline will also be considered. You may already be operating as a Head of Quality / Quality Manager, or you could be a technically strong Senior Quality Engineer, Quality Engineering Manager, Process Engineer or Development Engineer ready to step into a broader leadership position.

• Strong technical engineering capability
• Experience within complex serial manufacturing
• Excellent root cause analysis and structured problem-solving skills
• An understanding of stresses, strains, test data, failure modes and technically complex products
• Strong Quality Engineering and risk-management capability
• The ability to challenge existing standards and drive continuous improvement
• Credibility with demanding technical customers
• A methodical, detailed and disciplined approach
• Strong leadership capability with the ability to coach, support and develop engineers
• The personality and gravitas to establish high standards while bringing a team with you
• Defence or Aerospace experience would obviously be attractive, but it is not essential .
• We are equally interested in people from other technically demanding, highly regulated manufacturing environments including Automotive, Medical Devices, Electronics and other complex engineered products

The Opportunity What makes this particularly interesting is the scale of what is happening within the business. Production volumes are increasing significantly as demand from major Defence & Aerospace customers grows. Quality therefore has a critical role to play in ensuring the organisation can scale without compromising technical standards, product reliability or customer confidence. Youll have the opportunity to shape the Quality function, develop the team around you and have a genuine influence on how the wider manufacturing operation evolves. If youre an engineering-led Quality professional who enjoys solving difficult technical problems, developing people and raising standards within complex manufacturing, Id be very interested in speaking with you.

Engineering Recruit Scotland Connecting great engineering & technical people with great companies. We recruit across Engineering, Manufacturing, Quality and Operations, from Engineer and Senior Engineer through to Engineering Manager, Quality Manager, Operations Manager, Head of Function and Director-level appointments. Every candidate is interviewed as part of a thorough pre-screening process to ensure their experience, technical capability and career aspirations are fully understood. This vacancy is being advertised by Engineering Recruit Scotland.

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