EC& I Manager

Hart Process Services (HPS) is a growing multidisciplinary design consultancy with approximately 40 engineers and designers, specialising in:

1.    Process Engineering

2.    Process Safety

3.    Electrical, Control &​ Instrumentation (EC&​I)

4.    Mechanical, Piping and Layout

5.    Validation

6.    Project Management

We support a wide variety of clients in the whisky distilling, chemical, and pharmaceutical sectors. With around 30 active projects at any time, our typical design project values reach up to £3 million in fees.

HPS is headquartered at:

Unit A10, The Embankment Business Park, Heaton Mersey, SK4 3GN.

Job Summary

The EC&​I Engineering Manager will lead the Electrical, Instrumentation &​ Control discipline across HPS. This dual-role position combines technical leadership and team management with a strategic commercial focus — supporting proposal development, client engagement, and the wider growth of the business.

You will be responsible for managing the EC&​I department’s operations, developing talent, ensuring project delivery, and actively contributing to client satisfaction and commercial success.

In the early stages of the role, the EC&​I Engineering Manager is expected to spend approximately 80% of their time on fee-earning project work. This will naturally be reviewed as the department and workload grow.

EC&​I Department Management:

Leadership &​ Oversight

• Line management for 4 EC&​I engineers, 4 designers, and 1 apprentice designer.
• Weekly task alignment, workload balancing, and milestone tracking.
• Facilitate weekly 30-minute team meetings to assess progress and priorities.
• Conduct monthly one-to-one sessions and annual performance appraisals.
• Guide, mentor and support apprentices by providing regular feedback, and opportunities for skill development, ensuring alignment with both departmental goals and engineering standards.

Project Alignment

• Collaborate with Project Managers during project kick-off to align scope, resourcing, and deliverables.
• Assist project managers with identifying and mitigating project delivery risks.
• Ongoing support and oversight of EC&​I resource deployment across projects.

Technical Assurance &​ Design Governance

• Implement and maintain HPS EC&​I checking and approval procedures in line with company-wide technical assurance requirements.
• Act as EC&​I discipline approver for defined deliverables, delegating checking responsibilities appropriately within the team
• Ensure EC&​I designs are consistently safe, compliant, and phase-appropriate across all projects.
• Escalate novel, high-risk, or safety-critical technical issues to the Technical Director.

Planning &​ Reporting

• Participate in weekly resource planning with the Operations Director and the Director of Projects.
• Attend quarterly management meetings to review departmental performance, inter-discipline coordination, and continuous improvement opportunities. Present departmental KPI’s, providing analysis of trends, opportunities, and risks.

Performance Management

• Define and track department-specific Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
• Drive process improvements and maintain high-quality technical delivery.

Recruitment &​ Growth

• Support recruitment of EC&​I personnel, including assessing technical competencies.
• Mentor and develop the team to build future leadership and technical expertise

Culture

• Embrace and actively promote company values through collaboration, ethical behaviour and teamworking.
• Build trust with client teams to make HPS the partner of choice through project delivery excellence.

EC&​I Engineering:

• Lead assigned projects from an EC&​I perspective, overseeing engineering deliverables and quality.
• Recognises that EC&​I professionals typically specialise in one or two disciplines and therefore must demonstrate a sound technical grounding and working understanding of core principles across their weaker EC&​I areas.
• Able to competently review, challenge, and integrate Electrical, Instrumentation, and Control designs by understanding intent, limitations, and interfaces, even where not a subject-matter expert.
• Demonstrates sufficient cross-discipline technical awareness to identify risk, ensure design coherence, and make informed engineering decisions across the full EC&​I scope.
• Holds a good working knowledge of hazardous area design (ATEX / BS EN 60079) sufficient to act as design authority, review compliance, and provide hands-on support where required.
• Demonstrates a sound understanding of functional safety to BS EN 61511, enabling effective oversight of safety lifecycle activities and informed technical decision-making.
• Has a strong appreciation of EC&​I requirements on GMP projects, including design intent, documentation standards, and verification expectations.
• Attend weekly internal design reviews to report progress and identify technical or commercial risks.
• Provide guidance to designers and review technical outputs before submission.
• Lead external design reviews with clients to ensure alignment and satisfaction.

Input into project planning: manhour estimation, scheduling, and cost reporting

• Ensure all designs meet applicable UK, EU, and client-specific standards and regulations.

Commercial and Business Development

• Lead EC&​I input on proposal development: attend client sites for initial sales meetings, contribute to scope definitions, and produce manhour estimates.
• Provide strategic input into business development efforts to win new work and retain existing clients.
• Identify and follow up additional opportunities emerging from ongoing projects.

Client Relationship Management

• Build and maintain long-term relationships with key clients, understanding their needs and aligning HPS services accordingly.
• Maintain strong client satisfaction throughout project delivery, ensuring effective communication and professional representation of HPS.

Continuous Improvement

• Capture lessons learned across projects and implement improvement actions within the department.
• Foster and promote a culture of accountability, client focus, and commercial awareness throughout the team.

Skills &​ Experience:

Essential Skills and Qualifications

• Demonstrable experience leading and managing engineering teams.
• Proven ability to act as technical lead / design authority on EC&​I projects.
• Degree-qualified in Electrical Engineering or a related discipline.
• Strong experience in EC&​I engineering within process industries.
• Track record of successful multi-disciplinary project delivery.
• Ability to contribute to and review commercial proposals and client scope documents.
• Comfortable engaging with clients and internal stakeholders at all levels.
• Knowledge of relevant UK and EU design regulations and standards.
• Familiarity with project controls including scheduling, cost tracking, and reporting.

Desirable Skills and Qualifications

• Experience of functional safety design and good working knowledge of BS EN 61508 / 61511. TUV functional safety qualification or similar.
• Experience of ATEX hazardous area design and good working knowledge of BS EN 60079. CompEx Ex12 qualification or similar.

Working Conditions:

• Full-time position with occasional travel to project sites.
• Office based in Heaton Mersey, SK4 3GN
• Flexitime
• Flexibility in work hours may be required to accommodate deadlines and international time zones.
• Company Health shield provided
• Salary: £75,000 – £85,000 per annum (depending on experience)
• Package: Performance-related bonus, pension, flexible working, and progression opportunity within a growing consultancy.