Manufacturing Team Lead

Leonardo is seeking an experienced and motivated Manufacturing Team Leader to provide senior leadership across manufacturing operations, compliance, and capability development within our manufacturing environment.

This is a pivotal leadership role responsible for driving operational excellence, governance, audit readiness, workforce capability, and continuous improvement. The successful candidate will play a key role in developing future manufacturing capability while ensuring compliance, performance, and operational readiness across the manufacturing hall.

If you are passionate about people leadership, lean manufacturing, continuous improvement, and delivering sustainable operational performance, we would like to hear from you.

• →Strong understanding of manufacturing processes, principles, and operational management.
• →Proven experience leading and developing teams within a manufacturing environment.
• →Demonstrable experience within regulated manufacturing environments.
• →Strong understanding of governance, compliance, documentation control, and audit requirements.
• →Experience leading audit preparation and driving corrective and preventive actions.
• →Ability to influence and drive change across multiple functions.
• →Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with a data-driven approach.
• →Experience delivering process improvements and embedding sustainable ways of working.
• →Broad understanding of product lifecycle and manufacturing processes.
• →HND or higher qualification in an Engineering, Manufacturing, or related discipline, or equivalent relevant experience.

• →Lean Manufacturing qualification (Green Belt or equivalent).
• →Continuous Improvement or Operational Excellence accreditation.
• →Experience within aerospace, defence, electronics, or other highly regulated industries would be good but not essential

This is not an exhaustive list, and we are keen to hear from you even if you might not have experience in all the above. The most important skill is a good attitude and willingness to learn.

• Lead manufacturing compliance, governance, audit readiness, documentation control, and cleanroom behavioural standards.
• Develop and implement manufacturing strategies aligned to business objectives.
• Act as the senior authority for Hall Compliance, ensuring adherence to PRD063 and related procedures.
• Drive operational performance through effective leadership, governance, and execution.

• Lead, coach and develop manufacturing teams, building a culture of accountability and continuous improvement.
• Manage training, performance management, succession planning, and recruitment activities.
• Develop future capability through skills planning and workforce development initiatives.
• Promote lean manufacturing principles and high-performance behaviours.

• Ensure robust governance, risk identification, and mitigation processes are embedded within operations.
• Lead internal, customer, and regulatory audit activities.
• Drive effective closure of audit findings and sustain audit readiness.

• Provide manufacturing leadership and shop-floor input into NPI programmes.
• Support the introduction of new products, processes, facilities, and equipment.
• Collaborate with Manufacturing Engineering, Project Management, and wider stakeholders to ensure readiness and successful implementation.

• Act as the Manufacturing Hall Continuous Improvement and Operational Excellence focal point.
• Lead cross-functional improvement initiatives delivering measurable business benefits.
• Drive Lean Manufacturing deployment across integrated project teams and operational areas.
• Deliver improvements in Safety, Quality, Cost, Delivery and People metrics.

• Support capital investment planning and delivery.
• Manage budgets and ensure effective utilisation of resources.
• Work with engineering and project teams to ensure investments deliver predicted capability, capacity and business benefits.

This role is subject to pre-employment screening in line with the UK Government’s Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS). An additional range of Personnel Security Controls referred to as National Security Vetting (NSV) may apply, this could include meeting the eligibility requirements for The Security Check (SC) or Developed Vetting (DV). For more information and guidance please visit: https://careers.uk.leonardo.com/gb/en/security-and-vetting