Operations Engineering Manager

The Data Centre Operations Engineering Manager is responsible for overseeing all engineering and facilities functions on site, including both direct and indirect reports. This role ensures that electrical, mechanical, and HVAC systems are operated and maintained to meet defined service levels, while maintaining compliance with company policies, regulatory requirements, and safety standards. The role supports the Data Centre Manager to ensure strategic goals are met and site compliance and safety are maintained to the highest standard.

This role covers both MonFri and shift-based teams, with responsibility for first-line escalation on the on-call roster.

Core Responsibilities & Deliverables

Leadership & Site Operations

• Support Data Centre Manager with daily operations on site. Lead engineering teams to ensure accurate labour management and planning to fulfil required workloads within acceptable timeframes.
• Take responsibility for Health, Safety, and Environment (HSE) across all engineering maintenance and reactive activities, promoting a strong safety culture.
• Work with stakeholders (central teams/customers etc.) to define strategic objectives for the site and manage their implementation.
• Ensure engineering teams are trained and competent in their functional roles and to act as first-line responders for site incidents to minimise downtime (internal, external, scenario etc.).
• Implement and oversee a rigorous change management system to maintain 100% uptime and zero customer impacting failures.
• Plan, implement, and supervise all operations, maintenance, and energy management programs.
• Identify and risk assess operational deficiencies and recommend improvements to enhance site performance.
• Ensure operational standards, compliance requirements, and company policies are embedded in day-to-day activities.
• Oversee critical facility systems including BMS, CAFM, mechanical, and electrical infrastructure.
• Act as a Senior Authorised Person (where applicable) for High Voltage and Low Voltage electrical systems.
• Support with enhancing maintenance by recommending and implementing improvements to the maintenance programme.
• Understand engineering design and operational aspects of all site systems.
• Manage incident and emergency response, including equipment failures, fires, evacuations, and security incidents.
• Participate in the company on-call rota as first-line escalation.
• Review service failures, produce incident reports, and track corrective action plans to completion.
• Monitor and report on weekly and monthly metrics, prioritising critical operational issues to drive productivity and reduce repeat failure increasing overall service availability.
• Develop and maintain Data Centre operating procedures (OPs, emergency, standard, etc.) to ensure consistency and reliability.

Engineering Operations, Maintenance & Asset Management

• Oversee resolution of all identified issues across all site infrastructure and items that are assigned via management and supervisory teams.
• Ensure teams are responding to all faults, incidents, and remedial actions and that they are logged, tracked, and closed via the Service Desk Incident Management System.
• Oversee scheduling of planned preventative maintenance, contracted maintenance, and general maintenance to minimise service disruption.
• Oversee management of the site Permit to Work (PTW) system and ensure Risk Assessments and Method Statements (RAMS) are reviewed and applied.
• Coordinate with internal engineering teams and contractors to safely deliver maintenance, repairs, and customer-impacting activities.
• Maintain accurate operational records, including CMMS/CAFM data, asset information, incident reports, and maintenance documentation.
• Support Data Centre Manager with raising and maintenance of Risk Register and life cycle planning for all site assets.

Safety, Compliance & Procedures

• Ensure all activities comply with HSE legislation, local regulations, and company policies.
• Promote and maintain a strong health and safety culture across the site.
• Utilise monitoring systems (BMS, PMS, CMS) to support effective fault response, performance monitoring, and operational decision-making.
• Support incident investigations and Root Cause Analysis (RCA), implementing corrective and preventative actions to reduce repeat failures.
• Be fully conversant with company policies, operating and emergency procedures, and initiate improvements to minimise risk and promote best practice.
• Ensure site compliance is maintained to local legislative standards with any statutory compliance concerns raised, documented and having a clear action plan to achieve compliance.
• Work with ESG (Environmental Sustainability and governance) teams to improve sustainability and ensure accurate ESG reporting is complete each year.

Incident & Customer Management

• Develop strong customer relationships and embed a culture of Service Excellence across all engineering teams.
• Attend customer service review meetings and provide accurate reporting.
• Coordinate customer communication for planned and unplanned maintenance, ensuring alignment with site teams.
• Ensure internal teams and vendors meet customer timelines and deliverables.

Financial Management

• Support the Data Centre Manager with planning, budgeting, and control of operating and capital expenditure.
• Review and understand all annual budgets, forecasts, management plans, monthly performance reports, and variance reports. Support DCM in the population of these where required to ensure successful financial management.
• Identify cost and efficiency improvements.
• Qualify vendors, implement procurement processes, and assist with contract negotiation.
• Track vendor performance against contracts and SLAs to ensure value for money.

Team management responsibilities & key relationships

• Direct line manager to Engineering Supervisors, HVAC Lead (where applicable), and Maintenance Team Leaders.
• Oversees all shift-based and day teams, providing direct and indirect supervision.
• Collaborates with Data Centre Manager, internal engineering teams, contractors, and external stakeholders.
• Deputy for Data Centre Manager during absence.

SKILLS, qualifications AND EXPERIENCE

Core Skills (Required)

• Strong written and verbal communication skills across diverse stakeholder groups
• Collaborative leadership style with the ability to motivate, develop, and support teams.
• Strong problem-solving capability and continuous improvement mindset
• Ability to make sound leadership decisions in operational and high-pressure environments
• Lead by example, providing guidance, support, and mentoring to all site engineering teams.

Qualifications

• Recognised technical qualification in Electrical or Mechanical Engineering (e.g, NVQ Level, City & Guilds, BTEC, or equivalent).
• Authorised Person / AP12 / AP15 or equivalent (Electrical) certification, or demonstrable experience operating as an AP under a formal Safety Rules system, capability to progress to Senior Authorise Person.
• Desired management level training in leading and motivating teams.
• IT literate Microsoft Office, SharePoint, CMMS/CAFM systems.

Experience (desired)

• Minimum 4 years post-qualification experience, including leadership experience and planning experience.
• Experience in operation of data centres or other critical environments.
• Experience operating in customer-facing roles and resolving technical problems in high-pressure environments.
• Understanding of safe systems of work and able to evidence the implementation of these in previous roles (PTW, RAMS, Change Management etc.).
• Strong knowledge of BMS, PPM, CAFM, and Change Management processes.
• Knowledge of and experience working to international HSE standards.
• Experience maintaining HVAC systems, chillers, cooling towers, low/medium voltage electrical systems, UPS, generators, and associated plant.
• Strong troubleshooting and repair experience of critical building infrastructures.
• Knowledge of safe electrical and mechanical practices in line with regulatory standards.
• Experience implementing cost controls and financial oversight.
• Personable, approachable, and able to lead by example while meeting/exceeding operational and customer targets.
• Experience implementing projects in technical environments with awareness of managed service challenges.

Note: The successful candidate will be required to complete pre-employment screening to BS7858:2019, or national equivalent. (Covers: Confirmation of identity, legal right to work, financial probity, criminal history and associations with proscribed organisations). It is the policy of Pure DC that all individuals have a responsibility for the security and protection of company's Information and IT Resources over which they have control, according to their role.