Quality, Environmental & Compliance Team Lead

Job Title: Quality, Environmental & Compliance Team Lead (QE&C Team Lead)
Department: Quality
Reporting to: QHS Manager
Position Type: Permanent/Full-time
Hours of Work: 40 hours per week (Mon-Thurs: 8am – 5pm & Fri: 8am – 4.10pm)
Salary: Competitive
Location: Carrington, Greater Manchester

As Quality & Environmental Supervisor, you will play a key role in supporting and strengthening the Quality and Environmental function at Protective Packaging Ltd. This role is key to ensuring ongoing compliance with ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 standards. The successful candidate must take full ownership of the Environmental Management System (EMS), ensuring it is effectively maintained, audited, and continually improved.

Day-to-day management of the EMS and ensuring that compliance with ISO 14001 is essential, taking up approximately 20-30% of the role. The remainder of the position will be Quality (QMS) focused, involving oversight of compliance, audits, improvements, and some shop‑floor quality checks. You will also own packaging compliance (including PPWR) for the site; maintaining the compliance register, driving internal actions, and providing audit‑ready evidence.

Working directly alongside the QHS Manager, you will act as their deputy, leading the department in their absence and providing structure, support and guidance to others. Direct reports:
Quality Technicians/Inspectors (as applicable). This is a hands‑on, high‑responsibility position suited to someone with solid QE experience in manufacturing and a strong understanding of ISO systems, audits, and leadership.

Leadership & Departmental Support

• Support the delivery of the department’s annual plan and strategic goals, contributing ideas for improvement and helping to drive cross‑functional buy‑in.
• Take strategic ownership of ISO 14001 responsibilities and ensure environmental compliance and performance are embedded into site operations.
• Represent the Quality department in meetings and updates across the business as required.
• Directly manage and develop the QE/QEC team (tasking, coaching, performance feedback), ensuring coverage for daily QE activities.
• Support Health & Safety documentation and improvement activity as required (in coordination with the appointed H&S lead/competent person

Quality & Environmental Compliance

• Support the delivery of QE projects and initiatives in alignment with business objectives.
• Contribute to the development and review of QE policies, procedures, and documentation.
• Ensure ongoing compliance with ISO 9001 and ISO 14001, supporting preparation for audits and certification reviews.
• Keep up to date with relevant legislation, regulations, and international standards (e.g. ASTM, MIL SPEC), and help maintain the internal compliance library.
• Provide QE training to employees and promote best practices across departments.
• Prepare and deliver monthly QE activity and progress reports to the QHS Manager and senior stakeholders.
• Own PPWR readiness and internal actions: maintain the PPWR action plan, evidence pack, and cross‑functional tasking.
• Maintain a compliance register (ISO, environmental, packaging/producer obligations, customer standards) and ensure actions are tracked to closure.
• Support customer and supplier compliance queries (e.g., declarations/statements, traceability evidence) using controlled documentation

Quality Assurance & Continuous Improvement

• Support investigations into customer complaints and internal non‑conformances, applying root cause analysis and implementing corrective actions.
• Plan, schedule and lead internal audits across ISO 9001/14001; manage the audit programme, findings, and closure verification.
• Maintain the Quality Training Matrix and contribute to developing training materials and guidance.
• Encourage continuous improvement across the business, collaborating with departments to identify and resolve process variances.
• Conduct shop‑floor checks to monitor and improve compliance with quality standards.

Environmental Management System (EMS) – Lead Responsibility

• Take full ownership of the ISO 14001 Environmental Management System, ensuring its effective maintenance, internal auditing, continual…