CI Lead – UK Multi-Site (Food Manufacturing) / Locations: Regular travel across our UK manufacturing sites in Grimsby, Clitheroe, Histon, Fakenham, Peterborough, plus collaboration with teams in our offices in Central London, Reading, and Leeds.

Are you passionate about driving operational excellence? Do you thrive on empowering teams and transforming processes? We’re looking for a dynamic CI Lead to join our Group Continuous Improvement team and help shape the future of some of the UK’s best-loved food brands.

At our organisation, you’ll have the opportunity to work with an incredible portfolio including Harley’s, Cully & Sully, Yorkshire Provender, Linda McCartney’s, Farmhouse Fare, Sun-Pat, Robertson’s, New Covent Garden, Ella’s Kitchen, and many more.

About the Role

As our CI Lead (Business Improvement Lead), you’ll be responsible for driving continuous improvement and operational excellence across all business functions. Reporting to the Group CI Manager, you’ll partner closely with leaders across Operations, Finance, and other key functions to implement productivity initiatives, optimise processes, and embed a culture of sustainable continuous improvement.

This is a highly influential role requiring strong leadership, coaching capability, and the ability to deliver measurable results through data-driven decision-making and Lean Six Sigma methodologies.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead and deliver a structured CI roadmap, securing year-on-year cost and efficiency improvements.

• Partner with senior leaders – including Operations and Finance – to shape long-term improvement strategies.

• Build a robust pipeline of productivity projects using loss analysis, employee engagement, and cross-functional collaboration.

• Implement Lean principles such as Kaizen, SMED, and A3 problem-solving to drive process optimisation.

• Deploy and sustain IL6S (Integrated Lean Six Sigma) across the business.

• Coach and mentor teams, embedding high-performance ways of working and a culture of accountability.

• Act as a change agent, ensuring CI practices are understood, adopted, and sustained.

• Manage multiple projects using Black Belt-level methodologies to deliver measurable cost and efficiency gains.

• Deliver CI training and capability-building programs across all business units.

• Ensure compliance with health, safety, environmental, and regulatory standards.

About You

Required:

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Business, Operations, or related field.

• Minimum 10 years of operational experience in manufacturing or CI.

• Certified Lean Six Sigma Black Belt (or equivalent).

• A proven track record of leading large-scale CI initiatives and delivering sustainable change.

Preferred:
(Same as above – reinforces your strong CI foundation.)

Competencies

• Deep expertise in Lean, Six Sigma, and CI methodologies.

• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.

• Excellent leadership, coaching, and influencing capability.

• Confident communicator and facilitator.

• Skilled at managing multiple projects and priorities.

• Strong stakeholder management with the ability to work cross-functionally.

Role Conditions

• Regular UK travel across sites and offices is required.

• Primarily remote-based, with frequent time spent in manufacturing environments.

• Active engagement with production teams and senior leadership is essential.

 What we can offer you

If you're excited by the opportunity to make a real impact across multiple sites, build CI capability, and work with some of the UK’s most loved food brands, we’d love to hear from you.