Project Engineering Manager

Responsibilities / Tasks

The Project Engineering Manager leads a team of Senior Project Engineers and Project Engineers specialising in core business technologies to deliver engineering project execution across the project portfolio. The role is responsible for ensuring engineering deliverables are completed safely, efficiently, and in accordance with project scope, budget, schedule, quality, and customer requirements. The position provides leadership, resource management, technical governance, and continuous improvement across the engineering function while supporting business objectives and project performance.

Key Responsibilities

• Provide day-to-day leadership and operational management of the Project Engineering team.
• Ensure successful delivery of engineering work packages across the project portfolio, meeting scope, budget, schedule, quality, and compliance requirements.
• Develop resource strategies and capacity plans to meet current and future project demands.
• Monitor engineering performance, utilisation, and delivery KPIs, taking corrective actions where required.
• Provide regular updates to Project Management and Engineering Leadership on progress, risks, resource constraints, and improvement opportunities.
• Lead the allocation and prioritisation of engineering resources across projects and business objectives.
• Support technical escalation, risk mitigation, and resolution of complex engineering, manufacturing, and procurement challenges.
• Ensure effective management of SAP/ERP engineering data, Bills of Materials, engineering releases, and project documentation.
• Drive collaboration between Engineering, Project Management, Procurement, Manufacturing, Quality, Product Management, and Site Services.
• Support customer meetings, project reviews, design reviews, and key technical discussions where required.
• Promote and ensure the application of engineering standards, procedures, best practices, and regulatory compliance requirements.
• Lead engineering design review processes (PDR, CDR, technical reviews) and ensure resulting actions are effectively managed.
• Develop team capability through recruitment, coaching, mentoring, succession planning, performance management, and career development.
• Support PDP activities, appraisals, objective setting, training plans, and workforce development initiatives.
• Identify opportunities to improve engineering tools, processes, standards, knowledge management, and ways of working.
• Foster a culture of accountability, collaboration, continuous improvement, and engineering excellence.
• Support business growth initiatives by providing engineering input to strategic projects, new opportunities, and organisational development activities.

Your Profile / Qualifications

The Project Engineering Manager is an experienced engineering leader responsible for managing a team of Senior Project Engineers and Project Engineers delivering projects within the core business technology portfolio. The role combines strong technical knowledge with people leadership and project execution expertise to ensure engineering deliverables are completed safely, efficiently, and in accordance with project scope, budget, schedule, quality, and customer requirements. The position provides leadership across engineering resource planning, technical governance, continuous improvement, and organisational capability development. The Project Engineering Manager acts as the primary link between Engineering, Project Management, Manufacturing, Procurement, Product Management, and senior leadership to ensure effective delivery of business objectives and successful project execution.

Qualifications

• Educational Background Degree in Mechanical, Chemical, Process, Manufacturing or related Engineering discipline.
• Chartered Engineer status or equivalent professional accreditation desirable.
• Project Management qualification (APM, PMP, PRINCE2 or equivalent) desirable.

Professional Knowledge & Experience

• Significant experience leading engineering project delivery within a multi-disciplinary engineering environment.
• Proven experience managing engineering teams, resources, workloads, and delivery performance.
• Strong understanding of project lifecycle management, engineering governance, risk management, and technical reviews.
• Experience of delivering capital equipment projects within regulated industries such as Pharmaceutical, Chemical, Food, or Process Industries.
• Experience working with ERP/SAP systems, Bills of Materials, engineering change management, and manufacturing release processes.
• Demonstrated ability to manage competing priorities across multiple projects while maintaining delivery performance.
• Strong commercial awareness with the ability to balance technical, schedule, cost, and customer requirements.
• Experience collaborating with Manufacturing, Procurement, Quality, Product Management, and Project Management functions.

Skills & Competencies

• Strong leadership, coaching, mentoring, and people development capability.
• Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills across all levels of the organisation.
• Ability to influence decisions and drive alignment across cross-functional teams.
• Strong problem-solving and decision-making skills with a pragmatic, delivery-focused approach.
• Commitment to engineering excellence, continuous improvement, and development of best practices.
• Experience working within global, multi-cultural engineering organisations.
• Ability to communicate complex technical and business information clearly to customers, project teams, and senior management.

GEA is one of the largest suppliers of process technology for the food industry and a wide range of other industries. The international technology group focuses on process technology and components for sophisticated production processes in various end-user markets.