Manufacturing recruitment
Maintenance Manager Recruitment
The maintenance manager leads the engineering maintenance function for a manufacturing site. Responsible for plant reliability, equipment uptime, and statutory compliance, the maintenance manager manages a team of maintenance engineers and technicians, owns the planned preventative maintenance programme, and holds the budget for engineering consumables and capital replacement. The role reports to Plant Manager or Operations Director and sits as a peer to production and quality management. Demand is strong across food, automotive, pharmaceutical, and process manufacturing throughout the UK.
What the role involves
- Managing the site maintenance team of engineers, electricians, and contractors across shifts and disciplines, including shift rotas, skills matrices, training plans, and performance management across the team
- Developing and overseeing the planned preventative maintenance (PPM) programme to minimise unplanned downtime, using CMMS data to identify failure trends and adjust PPM frequencies to reflect actual equipment condition
- Managing capital expenditure for plant replacement, upgrades, and new equipment installation, writing business cases, managing project delivery, and ensuring new equipment is commissioned and handed over to operations with full documentation
- Tracking and improving equipment reliability KPIs including MTBF, MTTR, and OEE contribution from maintenance
- Managing external contractors and specialist service providers for statutory and specialist maintenance work
- Ensuring compliance with PSSR, PUWER, LOLER, and relevant statutory inspection requirements
Who employers are looking for
An HNC/HND or degree in Electrical or Mechanical Engineering is the standard qualification entry point. Most maintenance manager roles require a multi-skilled maintenance background covering both electrical and mechanical disciplines, since leading a multi-skilled team effectively requires credibility across both. Candidates with a purely single-discipline background will find some sectors more accessible than others, though food and FMCG environments particularly value multi-skilled experience.
IOSH Managing Safely or a NEBOSH General Certificate covers the health and safety oversight dimension of the role, this is expected rather than a differentiator. CMMS system experience is standard: SAP PM and Maximo are the most common platforms in larger manufacturers. Statutory inspection awareness covering pressure systems (PSSR), lifting equipment (LOLER), and work equipment (PUWER) is a baseline compliance requirement for the role.
Pharmaceutical and food sector maintenance managers additionally need GMP compliance knowledge and experience managing validation activities around maintenance. The consequences of non-compliance in these sectors mean employers are thorough in testing this at interview. Candidates who can demonstrate they have maintained a compliant maintenance system through regulatory audit will be preferred over those who cannot.
In automotive, the maintenance manager must be able to demonstrate experience managing OEE contribution from maintenance, with MTBF and MTTR data tracked and used to prioritise engineering resource. Press shops and body shops run complex, high-speed equipment where an unplanned breakdown can cause a production shutdown within hours if spare parts are not held or a contractor cannot respond quickly. Experience managing a critical spares strategy and emergency response procedures is expected at senior level in these environments.
The transition from maintenance engineer or team leader to maintenance manager is the most common pipeline for this role. Employers want to see that candidates have made a genuine leadership transition, not just a title change. Evidence of team development, budget management, and strategic decisions taken, such as a shift from reactive to planned maintenance culture, or the implementation of a new CMMS, distinguishes senior candidates from those who are still primarily technical contributors in a management title.
Salary benchmarks
Shift premiums are common where the role has 24/7 on-call responsibility. Pharmaceutical and food sector maintenance managers earn a premium due to GMP and hygiene requirements. Engineering Managers overseeing larger departments and capex programmes reach £70,000 - £80,000.
Industries that hire Maintenance Managers
- Food and beverage: high-care plant with strict hygiene standards and zero tolerance for production stoppages during core production hours
- Automotive: press shop, body shop, and paint line maintenance management across large, complex facilities with demanding OEE targets
- Pharmaceutical: GMP-compliant maintenance management with equipment validation requirements and regulatory inspection readiness
- Paper and packaging: high-speed converting machinery that demands robust preventative maintenance to protect continuous production
- Chemicals and process: pressure systems, rotating equipment, and instrumentation in environments with statutory inspection and safety management requirements
Related roles
- Plant Manager: direct line manager for many maintenance manager appointments, accountable for the overall site operational performance
- Operations Manager: senior peer or line manager who sets the reliability targets that the maintenance manager must deliver
- Manufacturing Engineer: collaborates with maintenance on capital projects and equipment improvement initiatives
- EHS Manager: peer function head sharing statutory compliance responsibilities across the site
Where we place Maintenance Manager professionals
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