Manufacturing Manager - Area Engineering

Lead Engineering Excellence. Drive Reliability. Deliver Continuous Improvement.

At DS Smith, we're redefining packaging for a changing world through innovation, sustainability, and operational excellence. We are looking for an experienced Manufacturing Manager - Area Engineering to lead our engineering teams at Kemsley Mill, driving a culture of safety, reliability, continuous improvement, and engineering excellence across one of the UK's largest paper manufacturing operations.

This is a pivotal leadership role where you'll be responsible for developing engineering capability, optimising maintenance performance, and ensuring our paper machine and fibre production assets operate safely, efficiently, and reliably. Working as a key member of the Engineering Leadership Team, you'll partner closely with Operations, Reliability, and Technical teams to deliver world-class manufacturing performance and support the site's long-term strategic objectives.

About the Role

As a key member of the Engineering Leadership Team, you will provide strategic and operational leadership for maintenance and asset care across paper machine and fibre production assets. Working closely with Reliability, Operations, and Engineering teams, you'll ensure engineering resources, maintenance strategies, and reliability improvement initiatives are aligned to support business performance, asset sustainability, and long-term growth.
This role is ideal for someone with a continuous improvement mindset who can combine strong technical expertise with exceptional people leadership to deliver outstanding engineering and operational results

Key Responsibilities:

Engineering Leadership & Asset Performance

- Lead and develop Area Engineering Managers and their teams to deliver safe, reliable, and efficient operations.

- Drive maintenance excellence through effective planning, resource management, and SAP work management processes.

- Improve asset reliability, availability, product quality, and operational performance through data-driven decision making.

- Lead shutdown activities and champion root cause problem solving to maximise equipment performance and reduce downtime.

Continuous Improvement

- Promote a culture of continuous improvement, innovation, and engineering excellence.

- Work collaboratively with Reliability and Operations teams to identify opportunities and implement sustainable performance improvements.

- Drive predictive and condition-based maintenance strategies to improve reliability and reduce business risk.

Health, Safety & Compliance

- Lead a strong safety-first culture, ensuring compliance with company standards, procedures, and legislation.

- Support investigations, risk assessments, and Safe Systems of Work to continually improve safety performance.

- Ensure compliance with environmental, quality, and regulatory requirements.

Financial & Business Performance

- Manage maintenance budgets effectively while delivering value, reliability improvements, and cost efficiencies.

- Support capital investment projects and work with Operations teams to improve production performance and reduce operating costs.

- People Leadership & Capability Development

- Build a high-performing, engaged, and accountable engineering function.

- Coach and develop teams through performance management, succession planning, and skills development.

- Strengthen engineering capability and create a pipeline of future engineering leaders.

About You

We’re looking for a driven engineering leader with a passion for continuous improvement, operational excellence, and developing high-performing teams. You’ll enjoy working in a fast-paced manufacturing environment where safety, reliability, and people development are at the heart of success

Essential Skills & Qualifications

- Recognised engineering qualification supported by significant engineering management experience.

- Time-served apprenticeship and/or NVQ Level 3 in Engineering.

- HND, Degree, or equivalent engineering qualification would be advantageous.

- Extensive maintenance leadership experience within a heavy industrial or process manufacturing environment.

- Strong knowledge of maintenance best practices, precision maintenance, and asset management principles.

- Proven experience leading large engineering teams through safety, performance, and reliability improvements.

- Experience using SAP maintenance systems and Microsoft Office applications.

- Strong communication and stakeholder management skills.

- Fluent written and spoken English

Desirable Qualifications

- Previous experience within the paper manufacturing industry, particularly liner and fluting production.

- Experience managing engineering functions within a large-scale continuous manufacturing environment.

- Knowledge of predictive maintenance and condition monitoring techniques.

- Experience managing complex shutdowns and major maintenance programmes.

Benefits

Additional benefits include:

- 25 days’ holiday plus bank holidays

- Pension scheme

- Life assurance

- Income protection

- Employee assistance program

- Cycle to work scheme

- Shopping discounts

Closing date: Sunday, 08th November 2026

Note. This role is part of the paper reorganisation proposal and will be advertised internally for the relevant paper employees.

About us

We are DS Smith, together with International Paper, we are a global leader in sustainable packaging solutions and other fibre-based products. We believe a better, more sustainable tomorrow is possible with the right people, who challenge and support one another to enact positive change. We employ more than 65,000 colleagues in North America and Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), who are experts in innovation, manufacturing, design, sales, sustainability, supply chain, and much more. Together with our customers, we make the world safer and more productive, one sustainable packaging solution at a time. Become part of a world-leading organisation and do your best work with us!

Fair recruitment at DS Smith

To fulfil our purpose of redefining packaging for a changing world, we aim to build a diverse, motivated, and engaged workforce. Our goal is to create a culture of inclusion where everyone is treated fairly, differences are valued, and everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed.

Our people come from diverse backgrounds, bring different perspectives, ideas and experiences to generate unique solutions focused on present and future sustainability challenges. We welcome all candidates to apply, even those not meeting all criteria