Lead Technician

Job Introduction

Lead Technician

Lead the Future of Packaging Excellence

At William Grant & Sons, we're passionate about creating premium spirits enjoyed around the world. We're looking for a skilled and motivated Lead Technician to join our Packaging team and play a key role in maintaining, improving, and developing our bottling operations.

This is an exciting opportunity for an experienced technician who enjoys leading by example, driving continuous improvement, and working collaboratively across operational and engineering teams to deliver exceptional results.

What You'll Be Doing

As Lead Technician, you'll support the Technician Team Leader in coordinating and leading the technician team to ensure safe, efficient, and reliable operation of our packaging lines. You'll have ownership of maintenance activities, drive technical improvements, and help develop the capability of the wider team. 

Key responsibilities include:

• Coordinating shift activities to maximise efficiency and performance.
• Supporting the safe and compliant execution of maintenance activities.
• Managing contractors in line with company standards and procedures.
• Owning the scheduling and delivery of planned and corrective maintenance activities.
• Driving line performance improvements through effective problem-solving and continuous improvement initiatives.
• Building strong working relationships with Production, Engineering, Planning, and Maintenance teams.
• Reviewing maintenance plans and tasks within IFS to eliminate non-value-adding work.
• Identifying skills gaps within the maintenance team and supporting training and development plans.
• Supporting technical elements of NPD/NPI trials, capital projects, and continuous improvement initiatives.
• Producing technical reports, recommendations, and improvement plans based on operational data and findings. 

Who We're Looking For

We're looking for someone who combines strong technical expertise with excellent leadership and communication skills.

You'll ideally have:

• Experience within a manufacturing, packaging, bottling, or engineering environment.
• Strong maintenance planning and fault-finding capabilities.
• Knowledge of continuous improvement methodologies.
• Experience coordinating teams, contractors, or maintenance activities.
• The ability to analyse technical information and provide practical recommendations.
• Excellent organisational and stakeholder management skills.
• A proactive approach to problem-solving and driving performance improvements.
• A commitment to health, safety, environmental, and quality standards.

What Makes You Successful

You'll thrive in this role if you:

• Enjoy leading and supporting others to achieve shared goals.
• Take ownership and accountability for delivering results.
• Build collaborative relationships across teams.
• Look for opportunities to improve processes and performance.
• Maintain high standards and a strong focus on safety, quality, and compliance.

Why Join William Grant & Sons?

At William Grant & Sons, we are proud of our heritage, passionate about our brands, and committed to developing our people. You'll join a business where your ideas are valued, continuous improvement is encouraged, and you'll have the opportunity to make a meaningful impact on our operations and future success.

If you thrive in a fast-paced environment, enjoy solving technical challenges, and want to be part of an ambitious company, we'd love to hear from you.

Apply today and help us continue crafting exceptional brands enjoyed around the world.

Our Values

• Be Proud
• Be Responsible
• Be Professional
• Think Long Term

These values drive everything we do and help us create a culture where everyone can contribute and succeed.

What we can offer you

• We offer a competitive salary and benefits which are designed to promote our employees financial wellbeing. Employees are also eligible to participate in a bonus plan.
• Our employees enjoy a generous holiday entitlement and an opportunity to ‘buy’ or ‘sell’ some holiday entitlement.
• Private Healthcare and Doctor@Hand (remote GP service).
• Our employees can join a defined contribution pension plan. Employees contribute either 4% or 5% of salary, the company contributes 8% or 10% depending on the employee contribution. Employee contributions can be made through salary sacrifice.
• Our Employee Assistance Programme offers practical, impartial support on everyday matters ranging from medical, financial and legal to home and family issues. 
• Our Life Assurance cover is a multiple of eight times your annual basic salary.
• Product allocation so that you can enjoy our fantastic portfolio of brands.
• Our Cycle to Work scheme allows you to hire a bike for an agreed length of time, and then snap it up for a fraction of its original value. All while making savings (at least 25%) and spreading the cost.
• Every employee has the opportunity to claim up to £1,000 per year for a charity or charities for which they have raised money, volunteered their time or personally donated.
• Learning resources to help you be your best self.

About William Grant & Sons

A HOME FOR RARE CHARACTERS

William Grant & Sons: a home where Rare Characters thrive.

We value every employee for their rare character, distinctive skills, experience and perspectives. Every one of our colleagues has a role to play in helping us to achieve our growth ambitions.

At William Grant & Sons, our vision is to be A home where rare characters thrive. We value all colleagues for their rare character, distinctive skills, experience and perspectives. Diversity & Inclusion is at the heart of how we do things at William Grant & Sons, fully aligned to our purpose and our company values. We strive to create an environment where we can all be our best and bring our whole selves to work.

OUR AGILE WORKING PHILOSOPHY

Our agile working philosophy is to “Have your best work day everyday”.
Built on trust, we empower our rare characters to have their best work day every day. Where flexibility and positive working experiences help employees to feel connected and release potential across our teams.
We are open to discussing possible agile/flexible working options as part of the recruitment process.

INCLUSIVE RECRUITMENT PROCESS

Diversity & Inclusion is at the heart of how we do things at William Grant & Sons, fully aligned to our purpose and our company values. We want to ensure that our recruitment process is inclusive. 

We want to make sure that all applicants are treated equally. To support this we will anonymise all applications during the screening stage. Details such as name, dates and educational establishments will only be visible to the recruitment team and hiring leader once an applicant is invited to interview, these details are hidden during the screening stage. To be able to anonymise applications they all need to be in the same format. You can upload a CV but we would also ask you to complete an application form – your CV will not be visible during screening. We hope you agree that this is good use of your time to help ensure a fair recruitment process.

This vacancy is being advertised directly by William Grant & Sons. Unauthorised copying, reposting, or distribution of this advert by job boards, aggregators, or recruitment agencies is not permitted without prior written approval.