Technical Manager

Welcome to Hovis. We are the proud guardians of over 130 years of baking experience that make up our iconic and much-loved brand. We produce bread and bakery products created with Hovis goodness at the heart of each. We deliver around 1.3million loaves, every day of the week throughout the UK and Ireland, where we also make Mothers Pride and Ormo products. 

We are 2,800 people working within 8 bakeries, 1 flour mill, and 2 regional distribution centres across the UK. Our success is a result of the hard work of our people; they are experts in their field whether it’s baking, manufacturing, logistics, engineering, or the many departments within the central functions team based in our head office in High Wycombe. We are a values-led business and expect our colleagues to live, breathe, and embed Quality, Accountability, and Trust into their ways of working.

The Opportunity

We’re looking for an experienced Technical Manager to lead Quality and Food Safety at our Nottingham site.

This is a high-impact site leadership role where you’ll set the technical agenda for the site, partnering closely with Operations, Engineering and central functions to protect standards, improve performance and keep quality at the heart of how we manufacture.

You’ll have full ownership of site technical standards, ensuring we meet food safety, legal, customer and BRC requirements, while also driving practical improvements across the factory. This is a role for someone who enjoys being visible on the shop floor, solving problems at pace and influencing teams to do things the right way.

This role gives you the chance to make a visible impact in a fast-paced FMCG environment: leading a team, shaping standards, working directly with senior site stakeholders and driving continuous improvement across quality, food safety and compliance.

Responsibilities

• Leading Quality and Food Safety across the Nottingham site, ensuring standards are understood, embedded and consistently delivered.
• Owning site compliance against BRC, food safety, legal, customer and Hovis standards.
• Leading audits, customer visits and technical reviews with confidence and credibility.
• Managing, coaching and developing the site Technical team, creating clear expectations and a strong standards-led culture.
• Partnering with Operations and Engineering to resolve issues, improve process control and reduce repeat non-conformances.
• Driving root cause analysis, corrective actions and continuous improvement activity across quality performance and factory standards.
• Acting as the key technical contact for customers, auditors, central functions and site leadership.
• Managing the Technical budget and ensuring resources are focused where they have the greatest impact.
• Using data, insight and factory engagement to identify risks, track performance and influence decision making.

What we’re looking for

• Experience in a senior Technical, Quality or Food Safety role within food manufacturing or a similarly fast-paced FMCG environment.
• Strong working knowledge of food safety, HACCP, audit standards and BRC requirements.
• A confident people leader who can develop capability, set standards and hold teams accountable in the right way.
• Strong stakeholder management skills, with the credibility to influence site leadership, customers and external auditors.
• A hands-on approach, with the confidence to spend time on the factory floor and challenge where standards need to improve.
• Good problem-solving and decision-making skills, with the ability to balance compliance, customer expectations and operational realities.
• A continuous improvement mindset and the resilience to drive change in a busy manufacturing environment.

This role would suit someone who

• Is proud of delivering safe, high-quality food products.
• Enjoys working closely with Operations rather than from behind a desk.
• Can bring structure, pace and clarity to technical standards and issue resolution.
• Wants a visible leadership role where they can influence culture, performance and long-term site capability.

Benefits Baked In

All colleagues can choose from a wide range of benefits in addition to salaries, based on their individual needs.

• Three levels of pension scheme to choose from - employer contribution of up to 7.5%
• Aviva DigiCare+ Workplace App includes: 'at home' Annual Health Check, Digital GP consultations, Nutritional Consultations, Second Medical Opinions and much more
• Enhanced parental leave (and flexibility where possible to suit your needs)
• Access to funded physiotherapy sessions
• Wellbeing support and campaigns to help you stay active and healthy, be financially prepared, and support your mental wellbeing
• Opt in plans for money back towards the cost of opticians, dentist, physiotherapist and more
• A benefits platform for all, Hovis Choice:
• £££ Savings and cashback offers on day-to-day spending
• Eyecare vouchers
• Cycle to work scheme