About this role
The Role
The Head of Mechanical Design is a senior strategic leader within Glanua, responsible for shaping and delivering Glanua’s global mechanical design strategy across the group. This position provides clear strategic direction, ensuring design solutions are innovative, sustainable, commercially viable, and aligned with the company’s growth objectives. Acting as a visible leader, the role fosters a culture of accountability, safety, and high performance, while embedding best practices in design, digitalisation, and sustainability.
The Head of Mechanical Design will act as technical authority and oversee multiple engineering design teams, manage sub-consultant relationships, and ensure regulatory, safety, and quality standards are consistently met. They will champion modern methods of construction, promote design standardisation, and drive continuous improvement to enhance efficiency, reduce risk, and deliver lifecycle value for clients.
As a trusted partner to clients, stakeholders, and internal delivery teams, the role combines technical excellence with strong commercial and risk management oversight. It also plays a critical part in talent development, succession planning, and resource optimisation, building the strength and resilience of design teams for long-term success.
Ultimately, this role ensures Glanua maintains its reputation for delivering robust, technology driven, and sustainable engineering solutions that meet client needs and contribute to the company’s strategic growth.
Main Duties and Responsibilities
Technical Leadership & Governance
- Act as the senior technical authority for Mechanical Design function across the Glanua Group of companies
- Develop and maintain discipline standards, specifications, procedures, design guidance and technical assurance requirements.
- Ensure designs comply with relevant legislation, standards, client requirements and Glanua’s Engineering Management System.
- Provide technical direction on complex, high-risk or non-standard mechanical and piping issues.
- Define appropriate checking, verification and approval requirements and ensure technical risks are appropriately escalated.
- Promote standardisation, repeatable solutions, modularisation and off site construction methods where appropriate.
The Role
The Head of Mechanical Design is a senior strategic leader within Glanua, responsible for shaping and delivering Glanua’s global mechanical design strategy across the group. This position provides clear strategic direction, ensuring design solutions are innovative, sustainable, commercially viable, and aligned with the company’s growth objectives. Acting as a visible leader, the role fosters a culture of accountability, safety, and high performance, while embedding best practices in design, digitalisation, and sustainability.
The Head of Mechanical Design will act as technical authority and oversee multiple engineering design teams, manage sub-consultant relationships, and ensure regulatory, safety, and quality standards are consistently met. They will champion modern methods of construction, promote design standardisation, and drive continuous improvement to enhance efficiency, reduce risk, and deliver lifecycle value for clients.
As a trusted partner to clients, stakeholders, and internal delivery teams, the role combines technical excellence with strong commercial and risk management oversight. It also plays a critical part in talent development, succession planning, and resource optimisation, building the strength and resilience of design teams for long-term success.
Ultimately, this role ensures Glanua maintains its reputation for delivering robust, technology driven, and sustainable engineering solutions that meet client needs and contribute to the company’s strategic growth.
Main Duties and Responsibilities
Technical Leadership & Governance
- Act as the senior technical authority for Mechanical Design function across the Glanua Group of companies
- Develop and maintain discipline standards, specifications, procedures, design guidance and technical assurance requirements.
- Ensure designs comply with relevant legislation, standards, client requirements and Glanua’s Engineering Management System.
- Provide technical direction on complex, high-risk or non-standard mechanical and piping issues.
- Define appropriate checking, verification and approval requirements and ensure technical risks are appropriately escalated.
- Promote standardisation, repeatable solutions, modularisation and off site construction methods where appropriate.
Design & Project Delivery
- Provide technical leadership across tender, ECI, concept, detailed design, procurement, construction, commissioning and handover.
- Ensure Mechanical & Piping requirements are appropriately defined, resourced and integrated within project design strategies.
- Support Design Managers and project teams in resolving technical issues, design interfaces and delivery risks.
- Provide technical input to equipment selection, mechanical packages, piping systems, layouts, constructability and maintainability.
- Ensure appropriate technical input is provided to procurement, vendor reviews, construction RFIs, commissioning and handover.
- Promote designs that consider whole-life cost, operation, maintenance, access, lifting, installation and replacement.
- Continuously enhance design processes and accelerate business digitalisation by integrating AI-driven tools.
Design, Safety & Technical
- Ensure mechanical and piping design risks are identified, assessed and controlled throughout the design lifecycle.
- Ensure appropriate Mechanical Design team participation in HAZID, HAZOP and other design risk-management activities.
- Maintain discipline capability and governance for HAZOP participation and, where applicable, facilitation.
- Ensure appropriate consideration of ATEX/DSEAR, machinery safety, pressure systems, isolation, access, lifting and maintenance requirements.
- Promote elimination or reduction of risks through design and ensure safety-critical interfaces with Process, EICA and other disciplines are clearly managed.
People, Capability & Resources
- Develop the Mechanical design discipline capability and operating model in line with the Engineering Department strategy.
- Define competency requirements, development pathways and appropriate technical training.
- Recruit, retain, coach and develop Mechanical Design Engineers of various levels.
- Develop future discipline leaders and succession capability.
- Maintain visibility of Group demand and capacity, supporting resource planning, recruitment and the appropriate use of external design partners.
Quality, Innovation & Continuous Improvement
- Drive consistent application of design checking, verification and technical assurance.
- Monitor design quality, errors, omissions, NCRs and rework and implement improvements where required.
- Develop and maintain standard design solutions, libraries, specifications and lessons learned.
- Promote BIM, digital engineering, automation, modularisation and other practical improvements that enhance safety, quality, productivity and constructability.
- Ensure lessons from projects, construction and commissioning are incorporated into future design standards and practices.
Commercial & Stakeholder Management
- Provide technical input to tenders, ECI, estimates, design budgets and resource forecasts.
- Monitor discipline productivity and external design expenditure and identify opportunities to improve efficiency.
- Work collaboratively with Process & Hydraulic, Civil & Structural, EICA, Digital, Construction, Procurement, Commercial, Operations and Project Management teams.
- Represent the Mechanical Design discipline with clients, consultants, specialist suppliers and manufacturers where required.
Health, Safety, Quality & Environment
- Lead by example in the application of Glanua’s Health, Safety, Quality and Environmental requirements.
- Ensure safe-by-design principles are embedded within Mechanical design activities.
- Support compliance with applicable statutory, regulatory and client requirements.
Reporting & Governance
- Report to the Head of Engineering on discipline capability, resource requirements, technical performance, risks and key improvement initiatives.
- Maintain appropriate records of technical standards, decisions, reviews, competencies and lessons learned.
- Provide appropriate performance information covering design delivery, quality, resource utilisation and technical risk.
Qualifications and Experience
- Degree or equivalent qualification in Mechanical Engineering or a related discipline.
- Significant Mechanical & Piping engineering and design experience, including experience in a leadership or technical authority role.
- Strong knowledge of mechanical equipment, piping systems, engineering standards and multidisciplinary design interfaces.
- Experience working across the design and delivery lifecycle within a design-build, EPC or similar environment.
- Experience of engineering assurance, design risk management and technical governance.
- Chartered Engineer or equivalent professional qualification is desirable.
- Experience within water/wastewater, industrial, pharmaceutical, process or related sectors is desirable.
- Knowledge of HAZOP/HAZID, ATEX/DSEAR, pressure systems, machinery safety and BIM/digital engineering is desirable.
Personal Attributes
- Strong technical leadership and credibility.
- Accountable, commercially aware and solutions focused.
- Collaborative and effective across multidisciplinary teams.
- Strong communicator with the ability to influence at all levels.
- Committed to safety, quality and technical excellence.
- Forward thinking with a focus on standardisation, innovation and continuous improvement.
- Able to operate strategically while maintaining sufficient technical depth to challenge and support project teams.
What Success Looks Like
- A clearly defined, capable and scalable Mechanical Design function supporting Glanua’s growth.
- Consistent technical standards, governance and assurance across the Group.
- The right people and resources are available to support project delivery.
- Safe, compliant, constructible and maintainable Mechanical solutions are delivered first time.
- Reduced design rework and recurring technical issues through standardisation and lessons learned.
- Strong collaboration between Mechanical Design and the wider Engineering and project delivery teams.
- A sustainable pipeline of Mechanical capability and future discipline leaders.
- Provide technical leadership across tender, ECI, concept, detailed design, procurement, construction, commissioning and handover.
- Ensure Mechanical & Piping requirements are appropriately defined, resourced and integrated within project design strategies.
- Support Design Managers and project teams in resolving technical issues, design interfaces and delivery risks.
- Provide technical input to equipment selection, mechanical packages, piping systems, layouts, constructability and maintainability.
- Ensure appropriate technical input is provided to procurement, vendor reviews, construction RFIs, commissioning and handover.
- Promote designs that consider whole-life cost, operation, maintenance, access, lifting, installation and replacement.
- Continuously enhance design processes and accelerate business digitalisation by integrating AI-driven tools.