Production Engineer

Location: Netley

Production Engineer
Southampton
Hands-on Production Engineer salary: £45,000 – £48,250

Please note:

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

Hands-on Production Engineer Overview:

Support and improve automated production lines in a growing in-house manufacturing site
Work hands-on with machinery issues, setup, changeovers and production performance
Lead RCA, process improvement, documentation and standardisation activity
Create SOPs, machine instructions and repeatable working methods for production teams
Develop machine setters and operators while improving reliability, output and consistency

This Production Engineer role is with a growing manufacturer in Southampton, supporting a newly established in-house production operation. The Production Engineer will work across automated production lines, helping improve line reliability, reduce downtime, standardise machine setup and support day-to-day technical issues on the shop floor. This Production Engineer position suits someone who combines process improvement and RCA capability with the hands-on engineering confidence to work directly with machinery, setters and production teams.

The Hands-on Production Engineer role

As Production Engineer, you’ll spend significant time on the shop floor understanding how each machine and process works, then using that knowledge to improve consistency, documentation and line performance. The production environment is still developing, so the Production Engineer will play a key part in building better structure around machine manuals, SOPs, setup methods, changeovers, fault finding and training.

This is not a purely desk-based CI role and it is not a pure maintenance position. The Production Engineer needs to be comfortable investigating production problems, supporting machinery issues, working with operators and machine setters, and turning practical improvements into repeatable processes.

Day-to-day responsibilities of a Hands-on Production Engineer

Provide day-to-day engineering support across automated production lines
Investigate production issues and identify practical technical solutions
Support machine setters with setup, changeover and operating problems
Help identify causes of downtime, quality issues and poor line performance
Create and maintain machine manuals, SOPs and operating instructions
Document setup requirements, standard settings and product changeover methods
Improve consistency between shifts, operators and production runs
Lead or support RCA activity for recurring machine and process issues
Support corrective actions following machinery, process or quality problems
Improve changeover methods and reduce unnecessary downtime
Support breakdowns, fault finding and practical repairs where appropriate
Assist with planned maintenance activity and spare-parts requirements
Work with suppliers or specialist contractors where additional support is needed
Guide and train machine setters and production staff on improved ways of working
Support continuous improvement projects across reliability, productivity and process control

What they’re looking for - Hands-on Production Engineer

Experience in a Production Engineer, Manufacturing Engineer, Process Engineer or similar role
Background working around automated production machinery
Strong practical understanding of manufacturing processes and shop-floor problem solving

Experience with root cause analysis, corrective actions and continuous improvement
Able to create clear SOPs, work instructions, machine guides or technical documentation
Comfortable supporting machine setup, changeovers and production issues directly
Confident working with operators, machine setters and wider production teams
Practical, analytical and able to…