Engineering & Operations Director

Position: Engineering & Operations Director
Location: Broadstone

Operations & Engineering Director
Poole, Dorset
Operations & Engineering Director salary: £100,000 – £125,000

Please note:

only applicants with the full-time, permanent right to work in the UK will be considered.

Operations & Engineering Director Overview:

Lead Engineering and Operations with a strong focus on people, structure and accountability
Bring whole-product engineering leadership across NPI, lifecycle support, quality and compliance
Improve prioritisation, delivery pace and project ownership across technical and operational teams
Strengthen manufacturing, supply chain, quality and operational performance through better governance
Join the senior leadership team with planned progression toward Board-level responsibility

This Operations & Engineering Director role reports directly to the Managing Director and is a strategically important senior leadership position within a growing, regulated manufacturing business in Poole. The Operations & Engineering Director will lead the integration of Engineering and Operations, bringing stronger structure, clearer ownership and better execution across product development, manufacturing, supply chain, quality, compliance and technical support. This is not just a technical role: the biggest priority is visible people leadership, coaching capability and the ability to bring organisation, urgency and accountability to talented teams that need stronger direction.

The Operations & Engineering Director role

As Operations & Engineering Director, you’ll lead several senior reports across Engineering, Operations, Technical Support and potentially one other business function. The role needs someone who can operate at Director level with real technical credibility, particularly around whole-product design, product development and engineering-led problem solving.

The business needs an Operations & Engineering Director who can improve how priorities are managed, how projects are tracked, and how teams communicate progress. There is plenty of capability already in the business, but the next step is better structure, stronger follow-through and more consistent accountability from concept through to production, delivery and lifecycle support.

This Operations & Engineering Director position would suit someone from an SME or mid-sized manufacturing background who is used to owning the whole product and process, not just one narrow function. You’ll need to be commercially aware, technically strong, approachable and able to drive change in a way that earns buy-in from the team, rather than creating resistance.

Day-to-day responsibilities of an Operations & Engineering Director

Lead and develop Engineering, Operations, Supply Chain, Manufacturing, Quality, Compliance and Technical Support functions
Coach and support senior managers, improving leadership capability, team structure and day-to-day accountability
Bring stronger prioritisation and project control across multiple engineering and operational work streams
Ensure key projects are tracked properly from start to finish, with clear owners, dates and escalation points
Strengthen whole-product engineering capability across NPI, product development, lifecycle support and design improvements
Improve integration between Engineering and Manufacturing so products are designed, transferred and built more effectively
Support technical decision-making around product design, manufacturability, compliance, quality and customer requirements
Improve operational performance across OTIF, quality, inventory, manufacturing efficiency, cost control and engineering responsiveness
Lead continuous improvement across systems, processes and ways of working, including ERP/SAP improvements where relevant
Ensure quality, compliance and regulatory requirements are embedded into engineering and operational decisions
Improve right-first-time delivery by strengthening attention to detail around BOMs, handovers, rework, redesign and technical documentation
Build stronger governance around KPIs, reporting, capacity, project status, actions and operational risk
Work closely with Sales, Service, Finance, HR and Business Systems to align technical delivery with wider…