Manufacturing and production recruitment: the people who run the site, hold the standard and keep everyone safe

MANUFACTURING& PRODUCTION VACANCIES

Output, standards and safety. Every site is judged on all three, and each one depends on a person: the production manager who hits the plan, the quality manager who holds the standard, the health and safety adviser who keeps people well. They’re in demand, in work and rarely scanning job boards.

Cathedral Appointments is a recruitment agency based in Exeter, with a presence in Plymouth and Taunton. We have been finding production, quality and safety people for South West manufacturers and other businesses since 1988, on permanent and contract terms, and we take the time to understand the site, the product and the standard first.

Talk to Dan Martin on 01392 575697.

What we recruit

The people who run a site, hold a standard or keep people safe. Cathedral Appointments recruits across all of it. Engineers sit on our Engineering page, and planners, buyers and warehouse managers on our Logistics & Supply Chain page.

• Operations. Operations managers and directors, general managers, heads of manufacturing and technical directors. The ones who make the whole site work.
• Production. Production managers, shift managers, production supervisors and team leaders. The ones who turn a plan into output.
• Quality. Quality managers, quality engineers, quality coordinators and technicians. The ones who protect your customers and your certifications.
• Health and safety. QHSE, QSHE and health and safety managers, advisers, officers and specialists, health, safety and facilities managers, and health and safety trainers. The ones who keep people safe and you compliant.

Senior and leadership roles

The people who run a manufacturer, or its quality and safety function, are leaders too, and Cathedral Appointments recruits them. These searches are often confidential.

• Operations and manufacturing leadership. Operations directors, heads of manufacturing, general managers and managing directors of manufacturing businesses.
• Quality and safety leadership. Heads of quality, and QHSE and health and safety directors.

Talk to Dan Martin on 01392 575697, or to Clodagh Murphy, our Executive Director, on 01392 575692. Our Executive & Leadership page covers senior appointments across every sector.

What’s shaping manufacturing and production hiring

Three things are shaping who employers need, and how they hire.

Skills, not just people, are the gap. Make UK reports that 36% of manufacturing vacancies are hard to fill because applicants lack the right skills, qualifications or experience, against 24% across all industries, and that about one in ten firms take longer than 12 months to fill a vacancy. It says the problem runs from leadership and management to production, and points to an ageing workforce. Its third-quarter outlook for 2026 shows hiring slowing, with the employment balance down to +3% from +15%, but investment intentions for the next 12 months rising to +15% from +8%. The people who can run, improve and sign off that investment are the ones in short supply.

Food and drink is a major local employer. The Food and Drink Federation’s 2026 regional report counts 1,175 food and drink manufacturers in the South West (2025) employing 41,000 people (2024), 9,000 more than in 2018, and says food and drink makes up 14.8% of the region’s manufacturing employment. In Devon, the report says Premier Foods is investing £19 million over three years at its Lifton site. Food producers carry heavy quality and food-safety obligations, so they hire quality and safety people alongside production managers.

Safety and employment law carry a real cost. HSE’s statistics for 2024/25, as summarised by DAC Beachcroft, record 124 workers killed at work and an estimated 680,000 injured, and put the cost of work-related injury and ill health at £22.9 billion. Under the Employment Rights Act 2025, statutory sick pay became payable from the first day of absence in April 2026, the time limit for tribunal claims rose from three to six months on 1 October 2026, and the qualifying period for unfair dismissal is due to fall from two years to six months from 1 January 2027. Getting the first hire right matters more.

Hire for good, or cover the gap

Permanent. When you want someone who will lead the site, the standard or the safety culture for years, we search, screen and shortlist, so you only meet people who are right for the role.

Contract and interim. Cover for a leave of absence, a certification audit, a project or a gap while you recruit permanently, on terms agreed with you at the start.

Who we recruit for

Production, quality and safety people work in:

• Food and drink producers and consumer goods manufacturers
• High-volume and low-volume manufacturers
• Makers of bespoke goods
• Packaging, printing and plastics manufacturers
• Medical device and technical manufacturers
• Construction and housing businesses
• Estates, attractions and visitor businesses
• Care and healthcare providers

How we understand the role

Skills you can test. Character you have to meet.

• We start with you. Your site, your shift pattern, your product, your standards and your regulators, and what a great first year looks like, before we start looking.
• We screen before we share. Every candidate you meet has been interviewed by us first.
• We look at the team, not just the task. A leader succeeds or fails on how they work with the people around them, so we weigh personality and fit as carefully as experience.
• Cathedral Appointments knows the South West market. What roles pay, which employers are growing and how far people will travel.

What moves pay

Pay in production, quality and safety varies with the role and the site. The big factors are the level of responsibility and the size of the team, the size and type of operation, the standards and regulators the role answers to, professional qualifications such as NEBOSH or IOSH, and experience of ISO standards such as 9001, 14001 and 45001, shift or on-call patterns, where the site is and how far people will travel, and whether the role can be hybrid. Contract rates move with the assignment. If you are about to advertise, ask Dan for a benchmark for your role.

Questions we get asked

What should I ask for in a health and safety or QHSE role? It depends on the risk in your business, but NEBOSH or IOSH qualifications and experience with ISO 9001, 14001 or 45001 are common starting points. An analysis of 117 UK health and safety job adverts, commissioned by NEBOSH, found more than 85% referred to NEBOSH qualifications. We’ll help you decide what the role needs and what can be learned on the job.

Do I need a quality manager and a health and safety manager, or one person? Smaller businesses often combine the two in a QHSE role, and larger or more regulated sites usually separate them, because the standards, audits and day-to-day work differ. We start from the risks and customer requirements on your site.

What’s the difference between an operations manager and a production manager? A production manager runs the shop floor: output, people and the plan. An operations manager owns the whole site, which usually adds planning, supply chain, quality and often the budget. The titles get used loosely, so we start from what you need done.

Do you recruit engineers, planners or warehouse managers? Engineers sit on our Engineering page, with Dan Martin, and planners, buyers and warehouse managers on our Logistics & Supply Chain page, with Ellie Connor.

Do these roles work hybrid? Quality, health and safety and some operations roles can be partly hybrid. Production and site roles are on site by nature. If you are open to hybrid working, say so in the brief: it widens the pool of people we can approach.

Your contact

Dan Martin, Senior Consultant.

Dan leads our engineering and manufacturing team and works with production, quality and safety leaders across Devon, Somerset & Cornwall.

Dan Martin: 01392 575697 | dan@cathedralappointments.co.uk