Maintenance Engineering Team Leader

Engineering Shift Team Leader

Location: Poole, Dorset

Salary: circa £58k

Shift Pattern: 12-hour Days & Nights

Are you an experienced Engineering Team Leader looking for your next challenge, or a Senior/Lead Engineer ready to step into leadership?

I'm recruiting on behalf of a well-established manufacturer in Poole that forms part of one of the UK's largest groups within its sector. The business continues to invest heavily in its engineering function, manufacturing facilities and reliability programme, making this an exciting time to join.

This isn't a role where you'll simply supervise from the sidelines. You'll take ownership of engineering activities across your shift, leading from the front whilst remaining technically involved when needed. You'll be trusted to make decisions, coordinate engineering resources, develop your team and ensure production runs as efficiently and safely as possible.

The Role

You'll be responsible for the day-to-day leadership of the engineering function during your shift, acting as the link between Engineering, Production and Site Management.

Key responsibilities include:

Leading, motivating and developing a team of Multi-Skilled Engineers. Coordinating reactive maintenance, planned maintenance and engineering priorities across shift. Scheduling engineering resources to maximise equipment availability and minimise downtime. Making real-time decisions during breakdown situations to restore production safely and efficiently. Supporting continuous improvement, reliability and root cause analysis activities. Driving engineering standards, accountability and performance across the team. Coaching and mentoring engineers to support their technical development. Working closely with Production to balance operational priorities with engineering requirements. Ensuring all engineering work is completed safely and in line with food safety and site procedures. Producing accurate shift handovers, engineering reports and communicating effectively between shifts.

Equipment You'll Support

The site operates a wide range of automated food manufacturing equipment including:

Industrial mixers and dough systems. Forming and processing machinery. Depositors and filling equipment. Tunnel ovens and heated process equipment. Cooling conveyors. Packaging machinery including flow wrappers, tray sealers, checkweighers and palletisers. Conveyor systems and automated handling equipment. PLC-controlled production machinery with extensive pneumatic systems.

Electrical

You'll ideally have experience of with or overseeing:

Three-phase systems. Electrical fault finding. Control panels. Inverters and variable speed drives. Relays, contactors and overload protection. Sensors, photocells and safety circuits. Reading electrical schematics. PLC fault finding, ideally Siemens.

Mechanical

You'll be confident overing work involving:

Bearings. Chains and sprockets. Gearboxes. Conveyor systems. Pneumatics. Mechanical strip downs and rebuilds. Fast-paced production machinery.

What We're Looking For

You'll probably already be an Engineering Team Leader, Lead Engineer or an experienced Multi-Skilled Engineer who naturally takes ownership, supports colleagues and wants to progress into a formal leadership role.

Previous experience planning workloads, coordinating engineering activity or supervising engineers would be highly advantageous.

What's On Offer

circa £58k basic salary. Panama shift pattern offering excellent work-life balance. Company pension. Health Cash Plan. Life Assurance. Employee discount platform. Ongoing technical and leadership development. Genuine long-term career progression within a large and growing manufacturing group.

If you're looking for a role where you'll have genuine responsibility, influence engineering performance and play a key part in developing both people and plant reliability, I'd be keen to have a confidential chat.

Whether you're already an Engineering Team Leader or a Senior Multi-Skilled Engineer with leadership expereince ready to take the next step, I'd be keen to speak with you.