Ready to find the right role for you?
Salary - Competitive Salary plus Veolia Benefits
Location - Chilton (Near Durham)
Hours - Full Time
Veolia is a global leader in environmental solutions. We manage tonnes of waste per year
with an aim to ‘resource the world’ and create a more sustainable planet for our future
generations. Veolia is committed to increasing workplace diversity and inclusion because we
understand the value this adds to our workforce.
We have an excellent opportunity for an experienced Operations Manager to join the Veolia team managing our Biomass Facility in Chilton (outskirts of Durham) . Reporting to the Plant Manger, the successful candidate will be responsible for the safe, efficient and reliable operation of the Biomass Facility and Pellet Mill.
What you'll be doing:
As the Operations Manager, you will be responsible for leading a large and successful operational team, consisting of technical experts and operative staff.
Establish and deliver an effective safety and environmental compliance culture for all plant and processes on site, including the methods and organisation of work.
Ensure compliance with the company’s Health and Safety, Quality and Environmental Management Systems, Policies and Procedures, ensuring that systems are in place to maintain safe systems of work for company and contractors staff.
Understand the environmental reporting requirements of the facility and ensure accurate reports are submitted to the EA in a timely manner including monthly emissions to air, quarterly returns on waste data, plant permanence and IBA/APC along with all annual reporting.
Ensure the plant operates within the requirements of the Environmental Permit and other Environmental Legislation and manage any issues to minimise any reputational damage.
Develop site operating procedures ensure they are kept up to date and the team are trained and operating to the approved procedures at all times.
Carry out both practical and desktop exercises with the team to ensure complacency is effectively prevented .
Undertake all aspects of staff management, including recruitment, induction, appraisals, training & development, disciplinary & grievance, Annual Salary reviews, PDPs (Personal Development Plans) all in accordance with Veolia procedures.
Develop a full succession plan for the team to identify progression routes and the training requirements for each stage.
Proactively monitor plant performance to ensure optimum performance and report on performance.
Proactively monitor boiler fouling to ensure utilisation of online cleaning techniques are maximised and downtime is minimised.
Be available as the first line of support to the operational team outside of working hours.
Manage consumables levels to ensure 100% availability making adjustments to the delivery regime to suit plant requirements and external factors such as weather and market conditions.
Manage fuel flows to ensure the levels onsite supports the requirements of the operation whilst satisfying customer requirements.
Manage residue production, storage and removal to ensure the plant can operate unhindered.
Identification of projects for improvement, providing cost benefit justification and timely delivery of projects to budget.
Promote the Veolia brand by conducting plant presentations and tours to external stakeholders.
What we're looking for:
Previous technical experience from a continuous process background
Strong leadership skills
Previous experience of working at a senior level
Ability to successfully support and manage your teams by offering them guidance and taking a mentoring approach to your direct reports
Negotiating and influencing skills
Strong commercial acumen
Familiar with Industrial Health and safety compliance
Power Generation Experience
NEBOSH
What’s next?
Apply today, so we can make a difference for generations to come.
We're proud to have been named as one of The Sunday Times Best Places to Work for three consecutive years in 2023, 2024 and 2025. This consistent recognition reflects our commitment to our people, demonstrating that Veolia is not just transforming the environment, we're also transforming what it means to have a rewarding, purposeful career.
We're dedicated to supporting you throughout your application journey, offering adjustments where reasonable and appropriate. As a proud Disability Confident Employer, we will offer an interview to applicants with a disability or long-term condition who opt-in to the Disability Confident scheme, and meet the minimum criteria for our roles.
We're also committed to ensuring that all applicants and colleagues receive fair treatment without discrimination on any grounds, aiming to create a diverse and inclusive workplace where everyone can thrive.
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What We Do
Veolia UK provides solutions for ecological transformation. We are a company of almost 14,000 employees, although we prefer to think of ourselves as “resourcers”. Every day across the country our “resourcers” design and deploy useful and concrete solutions, which help our customers fight against climate change, prevent pollution of our water and create a circular economy where nothing goes to waste. Every year, we serve around 1.8 million people through our municipal wastewater contracts. We complete over 400 million waste collections across our Local Authority contracts, serving over 3 million residential properties; and we treat over 1.5 million tonnes of commercial and industrial waste from our 85,000 private customers. We also produce over 560 MWe of renewable and low carbon electricity, to power over 1.3 million homes. Veolia UK is an exciting and innovative place to work, but don't just take our word for it - we were named as one of the top 10 'Very Big Organisations' to work for in The Sunday Times' Best Places to Work 2024. We're resourcing the world through our purpose of ecological transformation, and we're doing this by working together to constantly progress. We are reinventing the way things work to reduce our environmental impact and increase efficiency, whether in the reuse of wastewater or the recovery of waste, such as plastics. At the same time, we anticipate the needs of tomorrow with innovative solutions that will decarbonise our energy and heating demands. We do this through the development of microgrids and energy management through our Hubgrade solution, which optimises the management of resources using digital and artificial intelligence. We are driven by optimism and passion, not to see the world as it is, but how it should be; and we are tenacious in our efforts to achieve our goals. These aren't just empty words
