Manufacturing Engineering Lead

About the role

As a Manufacturing Engineering Lead, you will manage the Manufacturing Engineering and Tooling capability within an iCOMAT plant, reporting to the Director of Engineering and working closely with Operations. You will deliver hands‑on manufacturing engineering work while leading the team, setting objectives, developing capability, planning workload, supporting business development with quotations and manufacturability input, creating routings, Bills of Materials, Methods of Manufacture, quality control procedures, and tooling designs, driving APQP/NPI activities, ensuring manufacturing readiness, and promoting continuous improvement and best‑practice sharing across sites.

Responsibilities

• Lead the plant ME and Tooling teams, setting objectives, developing capability and planning the team workload.
• Own the Manufacturing Engineering delivery plan for the plant, ensuring priorities are aligned with Operations and Engineering.
• Deliver hands‑on Manufacturing Engineering work content as part of the role, not just team management.
• Support BD with quotations, including manufacturing methodology, process assumptions, tooling requirements and costings.
• Support product design for manufacture as required.
• Create routings and BoMs for production and tooling activities.
• Create full Methods of Manufacture (MoMs), providing step‑by‑step manufacturing instructions, health and safety requirements (including COSHH assessments where required), tooling required, equipment required, key material specifications, cure cycle specifications and programme numbers, and confirmation that customer specifications, quality approvals and compliance requirements have been identified and covered.
• Develop process sheets as required for standard procedures.
• Develop and implement quality control procedures and ensure an inspection plan is in place.
• Support the Tooling Design team to create tooling concepts, tooling requirements, fixtures and supporting equipment.
• Deliver APQP process on NPI where required, including process flow, PFMEA, control plan and PPAP / Fair.
• Take build‑to‑print components, tooling and parts from Design Engineering through to production, ensuring manufacturing risks, process controls and quality requirements have been evaluated.
• Own local manufacturing readiness for new products and processes, ensuring process development, tooling, material, documentation, training and quality controls are in place before production release.
• Review production data and recommend improvements in quality control and efficiency through process change.
• Lead structured problem solving for manufacturing, tooling, quality and process issues, using practical root cause analysis and corrective actions.
• Develop plant capability through skills matrices, SME ownership, training plans and help standardised process knowledge across ME, Tooling and Operations.
• Support procurement and suppliers with technical guidance on materials, tooling, equipment, packaging and manufacturing requirements.
• Promote safe working practices, AS9100‑aligned quality standards, lean manufacturing principles and continuous improvement across the plant.
• Collaborate across sites to share best practice and help standardise Manufacturing Engineering ways of working as iCOMAT scales internationally.

Requirements

• Minimum 5 years’ industrial experience within Manufacturing Engineering in a production, NPI or industrialisation environment.
• Minimum 3 years’ experience managing, supervising or directly leading a technical team.
• Practical knowledge of composite manufacture and processing is essential.
• Strong understanding of composite materials and their behavior.
• Understanding of AS9100 and quality control within an aerospace or advanced manufacturing environment.
• Proficiency in CAD, ideally SolidWorks and Composer, plus Microsoft Word and Excel.
• Proven experience leading Manufacturing Engineering, Tooling or production support activity in an industrial environment.
• Hands‑on approach with the ability to deliver technical work content directly as well as lead others.
• Strong understanding