HPS ECI Manager

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
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Line management for 4 EC&I engineers, 4 designers, and 1 apprentice designer.
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Weekly task alignment, workload balancing, and milestone tracking.
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Facilitate weekly 30-minute team meetings to assess progress and priorities.
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Conduct monthly one-to one sessions and annual performance appraisals.
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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
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Collaborate with Project Managers during project kick-off to align scope, resourcing, and deliverables.
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Assist project managers with identifying and mitigating project delivery risks
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Ongoing support and oversight of EC&I resource deployment across projects
Technical Assurance & Design Governance
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Implement and maintain HPS EC&I checking and approval procedures in line with company-wide technical assurance requirements.
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Act as EC&I discipline approver for defined deliverables, delegating checking responsibilities appropriately within the team.
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Ensure EC&I designs are consistently safe, compliant, and phase-appropriate across all projects.
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Escalate novel, high-risk, or safety-critical technical issues to the Technical Director.
Planning & Reporting
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Participate in weekly resource planning with the Operations Director and the Director of Projects.
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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
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Define and track department-specific Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
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Drive process improvements and maintain high-quality technical delivery.
Recruitment & Growth
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Support recruitment of EC&I personnel, including assessing technical competencies.
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Mentor and develop the team to build future leadership and technical expertise.
Culture
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Embrace and actively promote company values through collaboration, ethical behaviour and teamworking.
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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) suffucient 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, Client & Continuous Improvement
➔ 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.
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.
➔ Flexitime
➔ Flexibility in work hours may be required to accommodate deadlines and international time zones.
➔ Company Health shield provided
➔ Package: Performance-related bonus, pension, flexible working, and progression opportunity within a growing consultancy