Group Leader

Fantastic challenges. Amazing opportunities.

GKN Aerospace is reimagining air travel: going further, faster and greener! Fuelled by great people whose expertise and creativity sets the standards in our industry, we’re inspired by the opportunities to innovate and break boundaries. We’re proud to play a part in protecting the world’s democracies. And we’re committed to putting sustainability at the centre of everything we do, opening up and protecting our planet.

With over 16,000 employees across 32 manufacturing sites in 12 countries we serve over 90% of the world’s aircraft and engine manufacturers and achieved sales of £3.6bn in 2025. There are no limits to where you can take your career.

Lead a manufacturing group consisting of multiple teams, production areas, or related operations to safely deliver conforming aerospace products on time and at the required quality, cost, productivity, and customer-service levels.

Translate the Organization’s priorities into disciplined daily and weekly execution through Team Leaders. Establish consistent operating standards, strengthen accountability, remove cross-team barriers, develop frontline leadership capability, and ensure effective escalation and resolution of issues affecting safety, quality, delivery, cost, people, and capacity.

Serve as the second-line manufacturing leader connecting Team Leaders responsible for shop-floor execution with the Operations Leader responsible for broader operational performance, capability, and direction.

• Lead with a safety-first mindset across assigned teams and production areas; ensure Team Leaders establish clear expectations for hazards, controls, personal protective equipment, and safe work practices.
• Maintain routine floor presence, review safety observations and leading indicators, and ensure prompt escalation and correction of injuries, near misses, environmental concerns, and unsafe conditions.
• Hold Team Leaders accountable for compliance with lockout/tagout, machine guarding, material handling, housekeeping, chemical, ergonomic, emergency, and other applicable requirements.
• Stop or redirect work when conditions could compromise employee safety, product integrity, equipment, or the environment; coordinate resolution of risks that span multiple teams or functions.

• Own manufacturing performance across assigned teams, shifts, product families, or production areas and translate production requirements into executable near-term priorities.
• Review safety, quality, delivery, cost, productivity, labor, attendance, work-in-process, scrap, rework, downtime, and constraint performance; establish clear owners and recovery actions when results deviate from plan.
• Balance staffing, skills, equipment, and workflow between teams as operating conditions change while maintaining appropriate controls and escalation.
• Ensure Team Leaders have the work instructions, specifications, tooling, materials, training, and support required for consistent execution.

• Lead the daily management process for the assigned group through Leader Standard Work, tiered communication, visible metrics, routine floor reviews, and disciplined action follow-up.
• Establish consistent shift-to-shift and team-to-team communication, escalation, and decision-making expectations.
• Ensure abnormalities are contained, barriers are assigned to accountable owners, and corrective actions are verified for effectiveness.
• Prevent recurring problems from becoming accepted operating conditions by ensuring standards are documented, communicated, trained, audited, and sustained.

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