Head of Technical

Head of Technical

• UK-wide | Home-based with regular national travel
• Can you combine technical credibility with operational leadership and influence?
• We're looking for a Head of Technical to take the technical lead across Mitie's national Thales account.

This is much more than a technical assurance or compliance role. You'll be the senior technical authority for the account, helping shape how we manage critical assets, technical risk, compliance and lifecycle investment across a complex UK estate.

You'll work closely with operational leaders, site teams and senior customer stakeholders, providing the technical direction and challenge needed to keep services safe, resilient and effective.

Importantly, you won't always have direct authority over the teams delivering the work. Success will come from your credibility, judgement and ability to influence people at all levels.

The opportunity

You'll take ownership of the technical agenda across the account, balancing long-term strategy with the realities of day-to-day operations.

When a critical asset fails or a technical risk emerges, you'll be someone the business and customer look to for leadership. You'll establish what needs to happen, bring the right people together and drive the recovery plan through to resolution.

You'll also look further ahead, identifying asset and lifecycle risks before they become operational problems and helping the customer understand where investment is needed, why it matters and what should be prioritised.

The role includes

• Acting as the senior technical authority across the account.
• Setting the technical strategy, priorities and improvement roadmap.
• Maintaining oversight of critical assets, compliance, lifecycle and technical risk.
• Leading technical recovery plans where critical assets fail or continuity of service is at risk.
• Overseeing statutory maintenance, certification, audit readiness and Safe Systems of Work.
• Identifying asset investment and replacement priorities.
• Building robust technical and commercial business cases for investment.
• Using asset data, site insight and root-cause analysis to reduce recurring failures.
• Providing governance around specialist suppliers, competence and technical standards.
• Working alongside operational leadership to turn technical strategy into action.
• Giving senior stakeholders clear, concise and credible advice on risk, priorities and investment.

What we're looking for

We don't need someone who has followed one particular career path.

Your background could be in facilities management, technical services, building services, engineering, critical environments, manufacturing or another complex regulated estate.

What matters most is that you have the technical credibility and leadership presence to operate at a senior level while remaining close enough to operations to understand what's really happening on the ground.

You'll need to be able to demonstrate

• Strong technical knowledge across M&E/building services and complex assets.
• Experience working within a large or complex operational environment.
• Good knowledge of planned maintenance, statutory compliance and Safe Systems of Work.
• The ability to assess technical and asset risk and turn that into practical action.
• Experience dealing with critical asset failures or significant technical issues.
• The confidence to challenge and influence senior operational and customer stakeholders.
• Strong client-facing communication skills and the ability to make complex technical issues understandable.
• Commercial awareness and the ability to make compelling cases for investment.
• The ability to work successfully in a matrix environment, influencing teams that may not report directly to you.
• A practical, hands-on approach and willingness to take ownership.
• Flexibility to travel regularly across the UK.

Qualifications and technical knowledge

A relevant engineering, building services or technical qualification, professional registration or equivalent practical experience would be valuable.

Knowledge of areas such as Authorised Person (AP), LVAP, Responsible Person or Authorising Engineer arrangements, competence management, statutory compliance and technical assurance would also be beneficial.

Experience of CAFM systems, compliance reporting, audit evidence, asset registers or digital document control would be useful, although we don't expect one person to tick every box.