Chief Operating Officer

Had-Fab is a successful high-growth engineering business at the heart of the UK’s energy transition.  Driven by accelerating demand across the UK’s energy infrastructure sector, including major grid reinforcement programmes and the transition to renewable and greener energy. Against this backdrop, we’re looking for a dynamic, high-impact Chief Operating Officer to play a pivotal role in shaping the future of the business.

This is a rare opportunity to join a business at a genuinely transformational point in its evolution. As COO, you’ll have the resources and mandate to lead and scale our operational engine, spanning Engineering, Production and Manufacturing, through to Dispatch & Logistics. Your leadership will directly influence our growth, efficiency, and ability to deliver world-class engineering solutions.

Had Fab is widely recognised as one of the UK’s leading structural engineering and fabrication specialists in the rapidly growing Power Transmission and Distribution Sector. We also serve the Rail, Renewables, Civils & Infrastructure, Telecommunications and the Commercial & Industrial sectors. Established in 1993, we have built a strong reputation for delivering technically complex, large-scale projects from early-stage design and consultation through to manufacture, installation, and project delivery.

We are an agile and responsive business that is strongly customer-focused, with a consultative and collaborative approach to solving real problems for our clients.

This is a high-impact, C-suite role where you will lead our Heads of Function and their teams, bringing structure, pace and discipline to a growing organisation, ensuring our operational capability continues to stay ahead of accelerating demand.

We are looking for candidates with:

• Proven experience as a COO or Senior Operations Director in an industrial manufacturing environment, ideally steel, fabrication, engineering or heavy manufacturing
• Analytical with ability to plan capacity and measure and optimise productivity and efficiency
• Experience of operating at the board level and with multiple stakeholders
• A track record of supporting scalable growth
• Strong commercial and financial acumen
• A keen interest in and experience of leading continuous improvement initiatives
• High credibility across the shopfloor and executive team alike
• A data-led and performance-focused approach

This role represents a fantastic opportunity to join an established business at a period of exciting growth and to really contribute to its success and future sustainability.