National Operations Manager – UK Lift & Escalator
Location: Head Office, Gateshead
Employment Type: Full-time
Salary: Competitive, dependent on experience
About UK Lift & Escalator
UK Lift & Escalator is a family-owned business operating within the lift and escalator industry. We provide professional lift and escalator maintenance, call-out and repair services to clients across a wide range of sectors and locations throughout the UK.
As a growing business, we are looking for an experienced National Operations Manager to join our Gateshead head office and take responsibility for the effective planning and coordination of our nationwide maintenance, call-out and repair operations.
This is a key position within the business, working closely with our engineers, clients and internal teams to ensure we deliver a reliable, responsive and high-quality service across the UK.
The Role
The National Operations Manager will be responsible for the day-to-day planning and coordination of our nationwide engineering workload, with particular focus on planned maintenance, reactive call-outs and repair works.
Working from our Gateshead head office, you will coordinate engineers, contractors and suppliers across the UK, ensuring that work is planned efficiently, customers are kept informed and engineers have the information and resources required to complete their work.
You will be dealing with clients from all sectors and locations throughout the UK, meaning the role requires excellent organisational skills, strong communication and the ability to manage multiple priorities at the same time.
This is a hands-on operational role suited to someone who has strong experience working with engineers and understands the demands of a national service operation.
The role will involve working closely with and reporting to our Service Director and Repairs Director, as the role works between both the service and repair departments.
The successful candidate must be based at our Gateshead head office.
Key Responsibilities
Planning & Scheduling
- Plan and coordinate planned preventative maintenance (PPM) visits across the UK.
- Manage the scheduling and allocation of engineers for reactive callouts and breakdowns.
- Coordinate repair works from initial instruction through to completion.
- Ensure engineers are allocated appropriately based on location, skills, availability and workload.
- Manage changing priorities and urgent customer requirements.
- Optimise engineer routes and schedules to maximise efficiency and minimise unnecessary travel and downtime.
- Monitor outstanding work and ensure jobs are progressed and completed within agreed timescales.
- Identify potential operational issues before they affect customers.
Call-Out & Repair Management
- Coordinate the response to customer breakdowns and reactive callouts.
- Ensure any out of hours call outs actioned by the on-call standby teams are reviewed and processed as soon as possible
- Ensure urgent and priority issues are dealt with appropriately and efficiently.
- Liaise with engineers to understand faults, repair requirements and any additional resources required.
- Work closely with the repairs department regarding any follow-up repairs required.
- Ensure outstanding repair works are monitored through to completion.
- Keep customers informed regarding attendance, progress and completion of work.
- Escalate significant operational or customer issues when appropriate.
Client Support
- Provide a high level of operational support to clients across all sectors and throughout the UK.
- Build strong and professional relationships with customers and understand their individual service requirements.
- Act as a key point of contact between customers, engineers and the wider business.
- Respond quickly and professionally to customer queries and operational issues.
- Ensure customer expectations are managed effectively, particularly when dealing with breakdowns, delays or complex repair requirements.
- Support the business in maintaining strong, long-term customer relationships.
Engineer Support
- Work closely with engineers daily to ensure they have clear instructions and the support required to complete their work.
- Understand engineering requirements and help resolve issues that arise during maintenance, callouts and repairs.
- Monitor engineer workloads and availability.
- Ensure engineers receive relevant job information and customer requirements.
- Maintain strong communication between the head office and field-based engineering team.
- Promote a professional, customer-focused approach across the engineering workforce.
Operational Management
- Monitor the progress of maintenance, call-out and repair work.
- Maintain accurate records of outstanding and completed works.
- Ensure that the finance department has all information necessary for work invoices.
- Monitor operational KPIs including response times, outstanding jobs, engineer utilisation and customer service.
- Identify opportunities to improve planning and operational efficiency.
- Develop and maintain effective systems and processes for managing the national workload.
- Work closely with the Managing Director and wider management team to improve the overall performance of the operation.
About You
We are looking for someone who understands the demands of a national service operation and has proven experience in planning and coordinating engineers.
The ideal candidate will have:
- Previous experience in a similar operational or planning role
- Experience managing a geographically dispersed engineering workforce.
- Excellent organisational and scheduling skills.
- The ability to prioritise urgent work and manage multiple jobs simultaneously.
- Strong communication skills and the confidence to deal directly with clients and engineers.
- A calm and practical approach to solving operational problems.
- Strong attention to detail and the ability to maintain accurate records.
- Good IT and administrative skills.
- A customer-focused approach.
- The ability to work effectively under pressure in a busy operational environment.
What Makes This Role Different?
This is an opportunity to join a family-owned and growing business where the National Operations Manager will play an important role in shaping how our national service operation develops.
You will have responsibility for coordinating work for clients across multiple sectors and every part of the UK, making this a varied and fast-moving role where every day is different.
The successful candidate will be central to ensure that our engineers are where they need to be, when they need to be, and that our customers receive the responsive and professional service they expect from UK Lift & Escalator.
What We Offer
- A senior position within an established and growing family business.
- A central role within our national operations team.
- The opportunity to work with clients across a wide range of sectors throughout the UK.
- A varied and fast-paced working environment.
- The opportunity to make a genuine difference to operational performance and customer service.
- Competitive salary, dependent on experience.
- A professional and supportive working environment.
- The opportunity to develop with a growing company.
- Private healthcare cover
Pay: £50,000.00-£55,000.00 per year
Benefits:
- Free parking
- Private medical insurance
Work Location: In person
