TrainCare Centre Manager

BUSINESS FUNCTION: Engineering

GRADE: Executive

SALARY: Executive

ROLE TYPE: Onsite

HOURS: 37 per week

Northern is looking for an experienced manager to lead operations at our Neville Hill TrainCare Centre in Osmondthorpe, Leeds. Neville Hill is the largest of Northern’s five TrainCare Centres and is home to 500 of our engineering colleagues. This role is unique within the rail industry, and is perfect for someone with great interpersonal skills, exceptional leadership abilities and a genuine drive to deliver change. The successful candidate will have the opportunity to make a lasting impact on the rail industry.

Northern is owned by Northern Trains Ltd, a subsidiary of the Department for Transport’s public sector owning group, ‘DOHL.’ DOHL has responsibility for three other rail companies: LNER, SE Trains ('Southeastern') and TransPennine Trains.

Northern’s vision is to make a positive impact for the North, in all we do and for all we serve. Our 7,000 colleagues work together to connect millions of people in the North of England to work, leisure, and education. We operate 2,500 services daily and serve over 500 stations across the North.

Northern’s Engineering Team is engaged in a huge programme of transformational change .

About Neville Hill TrainCare Centre

Neville Hill TrainCare Centre has a long and prestigious history, dating back to the 1890s, and has always played an important role in the UK’s rail industry. Today we have a workforce renowned for delivering exceptionally high train care standards, for our own fleet and for LNER’s East Coast services.

The TrainCare Centre serves important territory; not just for Northern’s own East Region operationsbut for major infrastructure projects such as The Transpennine Route Upgrade (TRU), a major, multi-billion-pound programme of railway improvements, which will offer better journeys to passengers travelling across the Pennines between Manchester, Huddersfield, Leeds and York.

The 500-strong team at Neville Hill brings together specialists from many disciplines, including production, technical, facilities, supply chain, safety, and train presentation, and a dedicated Transformation Team is responsible for ongoing development of the TrainCare Centre’s facilities. This team has successfully delivered new offices, welfare spaces and accommodation in the last 12 months, alongside a full overhaul of the Power Car Bay where LNER locomotives are maintained and serviced.

Our Engineering Transformation programme will deliver a huge amount of change. It’s about meeting the challenges we face now and being fully prepared for the future. This futureproofing includes optimising our digitally capable fleet of trains and embracing modern systems, plans and processes.

The Neville Hill TrainCare Centre Team will continue to play a vital role in our business-wide Engineering Transformation Programme and will be using brand new systems and introducing revolutionary new ways of working. We know that change on this scale brings great challenges as well as great opportunities, and will require effective and intelligent leadership from our TrainCare Centre Manager.

Neville Hill’s award-winning team regularly picks up Golden Spanner awards for the reliability of the fleets they maintain and are frequently shortlisted for rail and other industry awards. Our most recent accolade was awarded to the train presentation team for their sparkling work on the fleet of LNER trains entrusted to our care.

The role

You will be responsible for overseeing the 24/7 operational activities at Neville Hill TrainCare Centre, outstations at Holbeck and Sheffield and at our newest and smallest TrainCare Centre at Hull Botanic Gardens – ensuring the highest standards are consistently met. Your role will involve driving operational efficiencies, ensuring high customer satisfaction, maintaining a safe working environment and providing leadership and guidance to the team. It’s also vitally important that we maintain a positive relationship with the railway trade unions, and this will form a key part of your role.

In addition to the day-to-day running of Neville Hill, you’ll play a key role in delivering the engineering transformation programme with your team. This will require close working relationships with the ransformation Project Teams, an excellent grasp of our aims and expectations regarding change and clear leadership-by-example in all that you do.

Our current TrainCare Centre Manager is retiring after a long and successful career in the rail industry.

The TrainCare Manager will report to Iain Burnett, our Director of Fleet, who needs an exceptional people-manager for this important, high-profile role. He explains:

“I’m looking for someone who thinks about the team with every step they take. We’ve got a lot of day-to-day activity to deliver, and we’ve got an ambitious transformation programme to take forward too. To get this role right you’ll need to have truly excellent people skills and the energy to motivate whilst we all deliver and experience change.

This is the sort of opportunity that doesn’t come around that often. To lead one of the biggest train maintenance facilities in the country is such an exciting challenge.”

About you

To excel in this role, you must be a natural-born leader who knows how to nurture and empower their team and have a proven track record in managing complex operations. You should be able to demonstrate strong analytical skills to identify areas for improvement, along with excellent communication abilities to engage and motivate. A background in the rail industry is highly desirable, but applications from candidates with transferable skills from other engineering disciplines are very welcome.

The ideal candidate will be an accomplished and experienced senior executive with the following qualities:

• Highly effective, and focussed, with inspirational leadership skills.
• Possessing the credibility, gravitas, and integrity to lead significant organisational change.
• Embodying and championing Northern’s values: ‘Make the Difference’, ‘Make it Last’, ‘Make it Yours’, ‘Make it Easy’, and ‘Make it Happen’
• Based within an hour’s travelling time of Neville Hill, and available to travel frequently as this is a highly visible Leadership role.
• Prepared to be ‘on call’ to provide leadership, as required, in this key operational role.

Salary and Benefits

Compensation for this role will be commensurate with seniority and responsibility and offers an exceptional benefits package and an additional on-call allowance.

NB. Northern Trains is an equal opportunities employer, strongly committed to promoting diversity and inclusion in the workplace.

We encourage and welcome applications from candidates from all backgrounds.

Northern holds a disability-confident status, reflecting our commitment to creating a truly inclusive culture in the workplace.