Business Unit Manager

Elevation Recruitment Group are pleased to be once again supporting a well-established, high-performing manufacturing business in the West Midlands, with the appointment of a Business Unit Manager for their Machine Shop. This is a pivotal senior leadership role with full operational accountability across safety, quality, delivery and cost.

Reporting into the Manufacturing Manager, you’ll take ownership of the machine shop production area, leading Production Managers and their teams to deliver against operational KPIs. This is a hands-on leadership role where you’ll balance strategic oversight with daily execution, ensuring plans are delivered, standards are upheld, and performance continues to improve.

You’ll be responsible for:

• Leading all HSE activity, driving a strong safety culture and ensuring legislative compliance
• Owning quality performance, process control and standard work adherence
• Delivering against throughput, OTIF and productivity targets
• Managing labour planning in line with budget and demand
• Full shift P&L accountability and cost control
• Capacity modelling and bottleneck identification
• Driving continuous improvement initiatives across the business
• Leading, coaching and developing Production Managers
• Managing performance, absence, recruitment and succession planning
• Supporting customer interactions and resolving operational issue
• Working closely with Engineering, Planning, Quality, Finance, HR and CI teams

We're looking for experienced Manufacturing Management / Operational Management level individuals for this role. You'll be able to demonstrate experience in:

• A background within a complex, fast-paced manufacturing environment (aerospace/automotive/high reg exposure advantageous). Experience within a large machine shop is preferable but not essential
• Experience working within a unionised environment
• Leadership of multi-shift, large headcount operations
• Strong knowledge of ISO systems and HSEQ frameworks
• Demonstrable experience managing large budgets, project/CAPEX initiatives, labour models and productivity
• A track record of driving continuous improvement using Lean tools (FMEA, 5S, Six Sigma, structured problem solving)
• The ability to translate high-level business goals into daily operational plans

This is a great opportunity to lead a fast paced, high performance production environment within a global specialist manufacturer.

Elevation Recruitment Group is a specialist recruitment consultancy that helps people build long-term, successful careers. We work across a wide range of industries and disciplines with a focus on making recruitment feel more human, more honest and more effective. We are specialists in every function and experts in every hire. Check out our website to find out more.