Head of Operations Management & Planning

1 Days Old

If you’d like to be considered for this opportunity we encourage you to apply promptly to avoid disappointment as if applications are high the role will close before the closing date given.

R27536 Head of Operations Management and Planning

Closing date: 20 July 2025

Location: RG7 4PR, located between Reading and Basingstoke, with free onsite parking.

Package: Competitive leadership salary depending on experience, plus various other benefits including a generous holiday allowance, performance related bonus & an additional flexible benefit scheme.

Working pattern: Primarily an onsite position but there is the scope to work from home dependent on business needs. AWE operates a 9-day working fortnight, applications from candidates wishing to work full or part-time will be considered.

Ready to play your part?

At AWE, it’s not just a job, it’s far more than that. Our shared purpose is to help keep the nation safe. Could this role be the opportunity for you to play your part?

The Head of Operations Management and Planning is a strategic position delivering a high-performing Operations Management and Planning capability in line with current and future business need; ensuring we have the right people, strategies, tools, processes and governance to meet business plan deliverables.

You will be leading the provision and delivery of the:

Product Delivery Management Office
Integrated Operations Plan
Master Production Schedule

This will be across AWE, leading and managing across an extensive stakeholder landscape and providing direction and support of day-to-day planning activities (materials, resources, de-confliction) to ensure on time delivery (OTD) ensuring requirements and critical business plan milestones are met.

This role is pivotal in driving operational excellence, ensuring seamless coordination across planning, execution, and enabling the organisation to meet its strategic commitments with precision and agility. You will have the opportunity lead across and engage with cross functional colleagues (Manufacturing Engineering, Commercial, Logistics, Business Unit leadership) and monitor, identify and report any capability or capacity constraints to allow for priority production decisions to be made.

Key Responsibilities

Overseeing the SAP strategy alongside the SAP implementation team and functional lead for SAP.
Lead the end-to-end S&OP process, ensuring alignment between demand, supply, and financial planning across operational business units.
Facilitate monthly S&OP cycles, integrating inputs from engineering, commercial, finance, Operational Business Units and supply chain to create a unified operational plan
Own the operational use of SAP modules to support planning, procurement, production, and logistics. This includes its deployment and implementing SAP to enhance operations planning and decisions for short, medium and long-term planning horizons, integrating resource planning, materials and forecasting.
Provide the direction and leadership to the operations planning team including coaching and developing the team and fostering accountability, engagement, development, performance and retention of their teams to drive and promote a high-performance culture.
Set and sustain the strategic direction for Operations Management and Planning functional capabilities. Lead teams to ensure the enduring integrity, management and maintenance of the planning/scheduling module on the company Manufacturing Resource Planning system
Lead operations business planning, including financial planning and analysis, workforce and capability Planning, including resource balancing, risk management, development and monitoring of SLAs, confidence Modelling.
Drive data integrity and system optimisation to enable real-time visibility and analytics across the value chain.
Lead improvement opportunities using lean tools to visualise workflows, bottlenecks, constraints and delays to eliminate non-value adding steps and waste removal in all its forms.
Analysing process data to identify cycle-time reduction, throughput improvement and areas of improving flow.

Who are we looking for?

Requirements

Degree educated or similar attainment level demonstrated through experience within an operations/ manufacturing environment.
Extensive experience in Sales and Operations Planning in complex matrix organisations/ portfolios including strategic experience with SAP from project preparation, data migration, user testing to deployment.
Proven experience of leading organisational transformation in relation to operations planning technology/ processes/ capabilities.
Extensive leadership, coaching and stakeholder management experience with track record of building relations cross functionally at all levels.

Whilst not to be considered a tick list, we’d like you to have experience in some of the following:

A broad understanding of the regulatory environment.
Your experience may include supply chain management, logistics, demand and supply and capacity utilisation, inventory management.
Proven track record of providing inspirational leadership to a team with diverse skills/ experience and building a high performing team.
High levels of business, financial and commercial acumen.
Ability to manage a wide portfolio of complex and inter-related activities.
Proven ability to manage programmes, schedules and plans, and positively respond to changing circumstances with agility.

You see yourself as having a strategic and proactive approach to managing obstacles. We welcome a visionary leader with a 'growth mindset' to push the boundaries of what's possible. You'll be joining us at a pivotal time, with the chance to shape the future direction of AWE through exciting technical projects.

Additional Requirements

Willingness to undertake UK and overseas travel.
Ability to obtain and maintain necessary security clearance.
DV clearance is required for this position.

Next Steps

Everyone who works at AWE brings unique skills and perspectives to the table. We recognise that great people don’t always ‘tick every box’. That’s why we focus on your potential, your fit with our values, your transferable skills as well as your experience. Even if you don’t meet every point above, but you feel that this role and AWE are a great fit for you, please go ahead and apply, we’d love to receive your application.

Important Things You Need To Know

We encourage you to apply promptly to avoid disappointment if applications are high and the role therefore closes.
You will need to obtain and maintain the necessary security clearance for the role. This will be funded by AWE. The nature of our work does mean you need to be a British Citizen who has been resident in the UK for the past 5 years in order to apply for SC clearance and 10 years for DV.
We want you to feel comfortable and able to shine during our recruitment process. Please let us know on your application form if you need any adjustments/accommodations during the process.
Our interviews typically take place over Teams and for most roles are a 1 stage process.

Our ambition is to create workplaces where we recognise and celebrate differences, encourage diverse contributions and our employees feel able to be themselves at work. We strive to create a genuine culture of openness and inclusion and encourage diverse applicants. Any inclusion information you provide will be stored in accordance with GDPR and kept separate from your application form and CV, and the information will not be shared with anyone involved in interviewing or making hiring decisions.

Please note that you must be a British Citizen to apply for a role with us. #J-18808-Ljbffr

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Location:: Reading, England, United Kingdom
Salary:: £150,000 - £200,000
Job Type:: PartTime
Category:: Management & Operations