Senior Shift Engineer, Arla – Leeds

Overview

As a Senior Shift Engineer, you will provide technical leadership on one of the UK’s most advanced dairy sites. You’ll be the senior engineering presence on shift, solving complex faults and guiding a team to sustain high performance. You’ll drive reliability and continuous improvement across highly automated production lines, while upholding safety standards. This role combines hands-on problem solving with leadership to shape site engineering excellence and future investments.

Pay / Benefits

• competitive salary
• 24 days holiday
• matched pension contributions up to 6%
• life assurance
• flexible benefits

Responsibilities

• Lead engineering response to breakdowns with advanced fault finding and decisions across automated systems
• Support and guide a team of five engineers on shift as the senior point of contact
• Diagnose and resolve electrical and mechanical faults on PLC-controlled equipment (filling machines, packers, cappers, conveyors, process systems)
• Deliver and optimise planned preventive maintenance to improve reliability and asset performance
• Champion health and safety standards and contribute to engineering projects and site-wide improvement initiatives

Key requirements

• Time-served/apprentice-trained engineer with NVQ Level 3, City & Guilds, ONC, HNC or equivalent
• Experience in FMCG/food manufacturing environments (dairy, brewing, packaging, etc.)
• Strong fault-finding with electrical and mechanical systems (PLCs, motors, safety circuits, inverters, hydraulics, pneumatics, pumps, gearboxes)
• Experience with Siemens S7 fault finding is highly advantageous
• Ability to make sound engineering decisions under pressure and communicate across teams
• Commitment to safety and proactive maintenance and continuous improvement

• Effective communication
• Collaborative mindset
• Leadership on shift
• PLC fault finding
• Siemens S7
• Electrical and mechanical systems

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