Reliability Lead

Position Title:Reliability Lead

Position Type: Regular - Full-Time ​

Requisition ID: 39400 

Reliability Lead.

About McCain.

At McCain, we’re feeding the world: from French fries to Smiles, we contribute to the important role food plays in people's lives. That’s why we’re dedicated to ensuring our core values—Family, Authentic, Trusted, and Quality—shine through every day. As a privately owned family company with over 60 years of experience, a presence in more than 160 countries, and a global team of 22,000 people, our values and culture are at the heart of everything we do. We believe that we can work together, along with our business and community partners, to bring sustainable growth and positive change today, tomorrow, and for generations to come. Join us and see how you can MAKE IT at McCain!

Why join the McCain family.

• Your Life – we’re here to help you fulfil your potential, flourish, and thrive in work and life.
• Your Success – work alongside passionate individuals who are committed to supporting your career ambitions, drive, and success.
• Your Impact – we want you to make a meaningful, lasting impact for you, for your colleagues, and for the business.

About the role.

In every role, McCainers are ambitious, curious, and interested in helping each other create good work experiences. We think about the customer and make doing business with McCain easy. 

As Reliability Lead, you’ll be at the heart of driving unstoppable plant performance—maximizing uptime, slashing maintenance costs, and elevating our food safety standards to new heights. Your proactive mindset will keep McCain’s manufacturing assets running at full throttle, powering our commitment to exceptional quality and operational excellence.

By owning routine condition monitoring, you’ll catch potential equipment issues before they strike, enabling swift, targeted action that prevents unplanned downtime and boosts asset longevity. Your reliability engineering expertise will fuel our evolution from reactive fixes to predictive, data-driven maintenance—strengthening McCain’s focus on safety, efficiency, and smart cost management.

You’ll also play a key role in championing our GB Reliability Vision: “By 2030, while fostering a strong network and inclusive culture, we will achieve zero engineering contamination.” Your leadership will shape a culture of reliability, innovation, and continuous improvement across all our sites.

Leadership Principles.

Our principles, each with related practices, guide our actions across the organisation. Together, they address how McCain interacts with our customers and employees, and how we work as individuals and collectively to find success. While each role adheres to the Leadership Principles, individual roles may focus more on a specific principle or principles.

We are customer obsessed. Customers are our starting point. By understanding their needs and leveraging data and consumer insights, we drive mutual success.

We think big and plan ahead. Through ambition, curiosity, and smart risks, we can accomplish goals, refine processes, and innovate to scale success.

We bring out the best in our people. We create safe spaces for our people so that trust and empowerment come naturally. Inclusion is about listening first, showing humility, and working together.

We act like owners. Together, we clear obstacles and do the work that makes us all successful and proud to be part of McCain.

Accountabilities.

Data Analysis & Problem-Solving

• Dive into equipment performance data, uncover trends, and lead powerful root cause analyses.
• Turn insights from Power BI and SAP into impactful reliability improvements, smart decision-making, and forward-thinking strategies.

Condition Monitoring

• Champion our condition monitoring programs, ensuring proactive use of cutting-edge predictive tools—vibration analysis, thermography, oil analysis, ultrasound, and more.
• Keep oil sampling on track and swiftly action recommendations to safeguard equipment health.
• Seek out and recommend innovative technologies that push our reliability performance even further.

Maintenance Optimisation

• Elevate maintenance procedures to boost equipment uptime and minimize unexpected breakdowns.
• Continually refine schedules based on real asset performance.
• Introduce next-generation reliability technologies that enhance efficiency and long-term asset resilience.

Continuous Improvement & Training

• Spot opportunities for optimization and lead targeted improvement projects.
• Deliver engaging training that strengthens reliability expertise across the site.
• Embed a culture of continuous improvement and operational excellence in every team.

Collaboration & Stakeholder Engagement

• Partner with production and site teams to troubleshoot issues, prioritize actions, and keep performance on track.
• Collaborate with OEMs and contractors to align support with site reliability ambitions.

Safety & Compliance

• Champion safety at every turn, upholding company policies and creating a work environment where responsibility and wellbeing come first.

Qualifications & Skills.

• Exceptional analytical mindset, with hands-on experience using powerful data tools like Power BI and SAP to turn numbers into meaningful action.
• Proven expertise in root cause analysis and reliability engineering, backed by a strong history of driving measurable improvements.
• Demonstrated ability to design and implement effective maintenance procedures that enhance reliability and minimize downtime.
• Outstanding communication and collaboration skills, enabling you to influence, partner, and deliver results across diverse, multidisciplinary teams.
• Solid understanding of manufacturing operations and asset management best practices, with the ability to apply them in fast-paced environments.
• A strong commitment to safety, innovation, and continuous improvement, always looking for smarter, better ways to keep equipment—and people—performing at their best.

Location.

Scarborough:

You’ll be based at our Scarborough plant in North Yorkshire. We opened this plant back in the swinging sixties, but it’s definitely not stuck in the past. It’s one of the largest French fry factories in the world and after a recent development, it’s also one of the most high tech. Our team of over 300 colleagues work hard to make sure the quality of our products keep our customers returning for more, for now and years to come!

The benefits of working for McCain.

Although we do encourage you to taste the goods you’ll be pleased to know we don’t pay you in ‘chips’. For working hard, you’ll also get a great salary and some pretty good benefits including:

• An excellent pension where we will pay double what you do, up to a maximum of 12% of your pay
• Flexible holidays – where you can buy & sell up to 5 days holiday per year
• Optional health cash plan
• Cycle to work scheme
• ‘Chips In’ Volunteering Day Off - to make a positive impact to the competitiveness, resilience, and long-term development of McCain communities across the globe

And of course, being part of a Global business there are great opportunities to shine/thrive should you wish to relocate in the future. We have an ambitious 5-year growth plan that presents development & progression opportunities for those who seek it out.

The McCain experience.

We are McCain: this statement is about our power collectively and our importance individually—your impact is a significant part of the business. Our winning culture focuses on authenticity and trust so we can always bring out the best in our people. Here, you have the opportunity to learn, grow, and thrive while being yourself.

Come and join The Makers to see why we are better together.

 #LI-OW1 

McCain Foods is an equal opportunity employer. As a global family-owned company, we strive to be the employer of choice in the diverse communities around the world in which we live and work. We recognize that inclusion drives our creativity, resilience, and success and makes our business stronger. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, sex, age, veteran status, disability, or any other protected characteristic under applicable law.

McCain is an accessible employer. If you require an accommodation throughout the recruitment process (including alternate formats of materials or accessible meeting rooms), please let us know and we will work with you to find appropriate solutions. 

Your privacy is important to us. By submitting personal data or information to us, you agree this will be handled in accordance with McCain’s Global Privacy Policy and Global Employee Privacy Policy, as applicable. You can understand how your personal information is being handled here. 

Job Family: Manufacturing

Location(s): GB - United Kingdom : England : Scarborough  

Company: McCain Foods (G.B.) Ltd