Injection Moulding Setter
Littleborough, Rochdale
£30,000–£35,000 + Overtime

If you’ve got the skills, we’ve got the work.

We’re looking for an experienced Injection Moulding Setter who’s comfortable working across a range of polymers – Polycarbonate, Polypropylene, ABS, Glass Filled Nylon – and with different moulding machines including Demag, Arburg, Negri Bossi, Boy and Engel.

What you’ll be doing

You’ll be part of a small team of 3–4 setters, running shifts Monday to Friday on a rotating 6am–2pm / 2pm–10pm pattern. Day to day, you’ll be setting machines, troubleshooting production issues, supervising operators, and keeping things running smoothly. Root cause analysis will be part of your remit when things don’t go to plan.

What you’ll need

• A few years' experience as a setter in injection moulding.
• Proven experience with multiple polymers (as above).
• Hands-on experience with various moulding machines (as above).
• Supervisory capability and strong troubleshooting skills.
• Flexible approach to working hours when covering holidays, absences, or projects.
• Clear verbal and written communication.

Desirable (but not essential)

FLT licence, First Aid, Fire Marshal, IOSH or similar H&S training.

What’s in it for you

A straightforward role in a stable business, working with a variety of materials and machinery, and a salary that reflects your skills and experience.

How to apply

If you’re an experienced setter looking for a change of scene and a steady shift pattern, send your CV and we’ll be in touch.

Field Service Engineer
Home-based | UK-wide (mainly between Sheffield, Birmingham and Cambridge)
£60,000 OTE + paid travel + vehicle allowance + pension

You’ll know this kind of job. Field-based, hands-on, plenty of variety. What you won’t find so often is a version of the job that pays properly, lets you get on with things, and gives you a route to grow.

This is a service role supporting automated packaging used by major brands. You’ll be based from home, travelling across a patch that sits roughly between Sheffield, Birmingham and Cambridge. Pay starts the moment you walk out your front door. There’s some international travel if you want it. No office. No pointless commuting.

Why this one stands out:

• OTE between £50k and £70k, with door-to-door overtime paid at 1.3x 
• A manager who’s actively looking to develop all engineers with company growth
• Work that’s complex and rewarding, not routine or repetitive
• A tight-knit UK team with a global backing behind it
• Trusted to work independently, without red tape or hand-holding

What you’ll bring:

• Level 3 qualification in electrical or mechanical engineering (electrical bias preferred)
• Experience in field service or from a military engineering background
• Comfortable working solo, solving problems and dealing with customers
• Able to read control diagrams and get to grips with machinery fault finding quickly
• Full UK driving licence

Package:

• £40–44K base salary
• Regular overtime (c. 10 hours/week standard - usually whilst you're driving to site)
• Vehicle & Mileage allowance
• 5% matched pension
• Seasonal peaks (especially Nov/Dec), but hours otherwise managed sensibly

Interested?

No need for a glossy four-page CV. Just a short overview of your qualifications, work history and a few key achievements will do the trick.  So you're aware, you’ll be speaking directly with the hiring manager rather than an agency.

RA Notes | Retained Kick-Off Meeting | 06/08/2025

Non-Negotiables / Must-Haves

• Solid project lifecycle experience
• Strong background in airports, warehouses, and logistics, ideally both, but one of the two is acceptable
• Proficient in Siemens TIA Portal, must be able to program from scratch (no existing library due to project complexity), approximately 5+ years' experience is ideal, but this depends on individual capability and past roles
• Experience with both HMI and PLCs
• Ideally, an understanding of how tracking works in logistics and airport settings, such as monitoring movement and location of items on a conveyor, including estimation models for bag or load tracking (window and baggage handling tracking)
• Comfortable working in a smaller, fast-paced business environment, with last-minute changes or delays
• Open to candidates from a contract background, provided salary expectations are realistic
• Must be willing and able to attend site and commission jobs, this is not a desk-based role

Project Structure / Responsibilities

• As the hiring manager, you launch the project with the engineer following the sales stage, they become the face of the project and act as project manager through to completion

Responsibilities include:

• Producing specifications, reviewing them with the customer, and ensuring alignment with the original quote
• Collaborating with Petros on the electrical design phase and coordinating with panel builders
• Programming the PLC using Siemens TIA Portal
• Commissioning the project and overseeing installers on site
• Managing client handover
• Providing post-installation support

Project and Support Workload

• Support work has not yet begun, but once more hires are made, this will be divided among four engineers to maintain a manageable workload
• Each engineer typically handles four to five smaller projects concurrently, along with one large project
• Work split is approximately 70 % home, 30 % site

Clients and Customers

• Predominantly working with Amazon, making up around 80 % of logistics work
• Also serve regional airports, including Liverpool and Belfast
• Additional clients in the food and beverage sector, ranging from small bakeries to larger operations

Competitors

• LAC
• DACS
• Holloway
• Logistex
• Gebhardt

Nice-to-Haves / Negotiables

• SCADA experience
• Electrical design capability

Cultural Fit and Team Dynamics

• You are looking for someone who is positive, approachable, and easy to work with, not someone who is difficult or stubborn
• The current team has a strong, upbeat dynamic, focused on delivering quality work while maintaining a fun, supportive environment

Screening Questions

1. Can you outline your typical project process or lifecycle and describe which stages you are involved in
2. Describe your experience writing software from scratch and how you typically approach it?
3. What are your expectations from your work environment and employer? Please also share an example of a time when you’ve worked both independently and as part of a team.

Company Structure

Current Team

• Richard, sales, engineering background, no longer hands-on
• You, managing engineering workload and supporting the team
• Controls Engineers: John, Sam, Kameel
• Electrical Design Engineer: Petros

Planned Growth

• Currently, you and Richard share oversight of engineers
• The goal is to hire more engineers so that you can focus more on strategic leadership and Richard can fully return to a sales role

Reasons Someone Might Join You

• Flexibility
• Supportive leadership team with engineering backgrounds and realistic expectations
• Hands-on support and guidance when needed
• Positive, collaborative culture where people enjoy their work. Work feels like a pleasure rather than chore.
• A practical, no-nonsense approach to delivery without unnecessary red tape

Potential Challenges or Points to Flag

• Small business environment, everyone needs to be flexible and contribute where needed
• Still rebuilding the project pipeline, not currently working on the most cutting-edge projects
• Limited long-term progression, although there is room to become a senior engineer
• Preference for proactive individuals who raise concerns early rather than offering excuses after missed outcomes

5 to 10 Year Vision

• Delivering larger, technically challenging projects
• Current project value is around £0.5 million, with ambitions to return to projects worth £5 million or more
• Maintaining a mix of large and small projects
• Company revenue around £2 million annually, with a team of 8 to 10 engineers
• Diversifying service offerings to include more stable, recurring income in addition to project work

Package, Salary, and Seniority

• Looking for a high mid-level to senior engineer capable of independently running and delivering projects without micromanagement
• Salary aligned with recent hires
  • £55,000 to £60,000 for someone technically strong but not managing end-to-end delivery
  • £60,000 to £65,000 for someone managing full project lifecycle independently
• Package: 

  - Half day Fridays when working from home

  - ⁠Usual 25 holidays + bank holidays

  - ⁠Home based when not on site

  - ⁠Flexible hours between 7 and 7

  - ⁠Vitality medical cover

  - ⁠ Equal pension contributions either 4% or 5% employer and employee

  - ⁠”Adult working” I.e. no micromanagement, fair and grown up approach to work and rest time especially where long hours have been worked

  - Phone contribution

  - Milage when travelling to site

Interview Process

• Interviews scheduled for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd September, booked in your calendar
• First stage with you
• Second stage with Richard
• You would like candidates to be offered the chance to speak with someone from the team before or after interviews, and this will be noted on their CV if they are interested

Next Check-In Call

14 August 2025, 3:00 PM

Are you a Contract Electrical Controls Engineer looking for your next long-term project where you can take ownership of your work from design through to site implementation?

If that sounds like you, this opportunity might be right up your street.

This is a three-year utility project based in Liverpool, starting this August. You’ll be involved in everything from conducting site surveys and designing control panels to installing Ethernet cabling across dock areas. You’ll also be working with Siemens equipment and collaborating on field instrumentation design, so experience in these areas is essential.

You’ll need a solid background in electrical instrumentation with hands on experience in: PLC hardware, Fibre optic and Ethernet communications and Siemens.

Familiarity with Eplan software would be a bonus, and previous utility project experience will stand you in good stead.

You can work flexibly between the Warrington office and the Liverpool site. The contract is temporary for the project duration, and self employed contractors are encouraged to apply. We’re open to engineers at all levels, whether you’re early in your career or have years of experience under your belt – what matters is your ability to deliver quality work efficiently and safely.

If this sounds like the kind of project you want to get stuck into, send your CV and relevant experience to eloisa@optima-cs.com or pop me a call on 0161 250 5326.

Do you want a role where you can take full ownership of PLC programming projects, make key decisions, and see your solutions operating in the real world?

If so, and you have a strong background in PLC programming with Siemens and Allen Bradley FactoryTalk, this could be the ideal next step in your career.

Our client is a leader in designing and developing advanced control and instrumentation systems for the Pharma and Bio sectors. They’re looking for a Control Systems Engineer who can take full ownership of programming projects, from initial concept right through to commissioning.

In this role, you’ll be writing control programmes from the ground up, testing them, and commissioning them on site. It’s a hybrid position, so you’ll split your time between home working, office collaboration, and site visits as needed.

What’s interesting about this opportunity is that while the company works extensively in ATEX and pharmaceutical environments, they’re completely open to candidates without specific sector experience. The priority is finding someone confident in PLC programming who enjoys delivering effective, reliable solutions.

The salary is open at this stage – it’s been over 12 years since this role was last recruited, so they’re keeping an open mind to attract the right expertise. They also pride themselves on their collaborative and supportive company culture, where your ideas and contributions are genuinely valued.

Interested in finding out more? Call me on 0161 250 5326 for an informal chat.

And don’t worry if your CV isn’t updated yet – we can sort that later.

Commissioning & Support Role

Responsibilities

3 kinds of bits

Programming smaller scale projects using siemens -2/3 days / 5 days – not big 6/9-month long projects – more of them but shorter time scales- flexibility on delivery time scales

Add conveyors/ change conveyors

Commissioning – set up fault find/ help others commission /maybe not from start to finish more site delivery

More site time than normal projects

50/50 office and site – someone who likes being on site – time off if working long hours etc

Probably suits someone coming from maintenance- knows basic programming  (2/3 years)

Will get to 24 hours- customer call/ first point of contact/ predominantly remote support first basis/ diagnose what’s going on / rectify issues / not a lot about 5/6 customers Mon-Fri atm

Site for 2/3 days but not going to be on site for 5/6 weeks- more regular but different duration. 

Site Locations

Midlands/ North West

OT/Hours

Figure out what the person is worth for the project engineer and then a bonus on top (around 10k per year)

Working hours (usual 37 hour) being available 24/7

They won’t be the only one there will be 2 or 3 – rota

Not every move is about money.
But buying a house makes stability matter. If you're an Electrical Hardware Designer who wants a role that actually supports you, without just throwing you in at the deep end, this could be for you.

We're hiring someone to join a close-knit team designing control systems for industrial automation and process environments. It’s a permanent, office-based role within a commutable distance from Telford. If you’re used to EPLAN, even better (that's what we use) but we won’t discount someone with strong foundations and the right mindset.

I can't pretend to be cutting edge or the biggest name in the game. But we’re not restructuring, we’re not replacing you a month after you start, and we’re not expecting you to “hit the ground running” without support.

You’ll be solving real engineering problems.
Working on a mix of new builds and system upgrades. Helping with everything from schematics and panel layouts to making sure your designs actually make it through manufacture and install without a hitch.

This would suit someone who's hit a ceiling (or been burned by bad management) and wants to go somewhere they’ll be backed properly. If you’ve been mentoring junior engineers or guiding installs, that’s a plus.

Salary around £50 - 55K, based on what you bring.
We’re realistic. If you’re on more but looking for the right fit, let’s talk. You won’t be dragged through four rounds of interviews either.

Want to have a quick chat to see if it's worth applying?

Are you an expert in Siemens control systems, with a strong track record in PLC programming, HMI design, and electrical fault finding? Do you thrive in a flexible, hybrid working environment and enjoy a mix of remote and on-site work? If so, this could be the role for you!

We’re looking for a Control Systems Engineer who is proficient in Siemens technologies—specifically Step 7 Classic, TIA Portal, S7-1500 PLCs, S120 Servo drives, and WinCC Unified—to join a dynamic team with a focus on upgrading legacy systems and creating bespoke solutions. If you’ve got experience working on older platforms as well as modern ones, that’s a huge plus, especially when it comes to migrating older technologies to newer systems.

What You’ll Be Doing:

A large portion of your role (around 70%) will involve upgrading and migrating systems—think moving from old hardware/software to newer versions. Experience with legacy code is a must, as you’ll be dealing with both new systems and old, and you'll need to modify them to deliver enhanced functionality.

Flexibility is key, as you may be required to help with breakdowns, supporting on-site clients, and assisting in full turn-key installations.

We want someone who’s ready to hit the ground running ideally but could consider providing training and support to help you get up to speed with the technologies and systems if needed.

The Role

This will be a hybrid role, offering a blend of remote and some on-site travel required. The work will vary week to week, and you’ll be expected to travel to key customer locations around the UK, with occasional international opportunities. Locations include Workington, Carlisle, Washington (Sunderland), and Lockerbie—and potentially beyond for global projects. Travel will be shared fairly, and your family life is important to us, so we’ll aim for a balanced approach to site visits.

When working remotely, the hours are flexible—whether you want to work 15 hours in one day and 3 the next or follow a more structured schedule, we trust you to manage your time as long as it fits with the project deadlines and deliverables. The key is to maintain flexibility and productivity, with the possibility of adjusting hours on a rolling basis, depending on your preferences.

Who You Are

• Siemens experience is non-negotiable: You need to be comfortable working with Step 7 Classic, TIA Portal, S7-1500, and WinCC Unified.
• Electronics knowledge is a big bonus—whether it’s fault finding, repair, or even designing your own circuits.
• Experience in electrical design (ePlan, AutoCAD Electrical) and machine safety (EC marking, compliance testing) would be a big plus, but not essential.
• Client-facing skills are a must—you’ll be working in high-pressure environments, particularly when troubleshooting during breakdowns, and you’ll need to stay calm under pressure. Strong verbal communication is key.
• The flexibility to adapt to different systems and technologies, as well as a keen eye for detail and a strong work ethic, will make you a great fit.

Why This Role Could Be a Perfect Fit

• Training and support are available for those willing to learn and adapt.
• Flexible working hours and remote setup offer a great work-life balance.
• There’s plenty of opportunity for variety—from legacy system upgrades to cutting-edge electronic design.

If you’re excited by the prospect of working in a flexible, supportive, and varied role, then we’d love to hear from you. Please feel free to get in touch with Eloisa@optima-cs.com or call 0161 250 5326 to chat further.

• They’re actively looking for this person and have been for 8 months now
• They have actually hire (2 or 3 people) but they’ve left as in the interview they’ve played it as though they can do more than they actually can and one left to go back to his previous company
• Electrical design but if someone can do controls too then that’s a bonus
• Skillset and salaries have been the main issue really (people expecting more than what they can actually do)
• Electrical design: Eplan, design pneumatics, control panels, wiring diagrams, schematics, BOM, documentation, voltages etc
• Control systems: they use siemens
• Commissioning: all UK based (if electrical bias about 2 weeks per year) / (If controls bias it’d be more)
• Open to them being more software bias as they’d make the role suit the person and skillset
• They export their product around the world but this person wouldn’t need to go overseas
• Pharmaceutical industry- this person doesn’t need pharma experience (can be from any background as long as it’s automation)
• Mon/Tues/Thurs they’d be in the office near Liverpool airport
• Weds/ Fri from home
• They have one team of 6 engineers that are a mix of controls, elec design and duall skilled, apprentices etc
• They’d deal with technical sales, costing, design, specifications, testing, documentation, programming, commissioning through to client handover
• Open to years of experience – progression is deffo on the cards but depends on the persons goals
• 60-70k depending on experience
• Pension
• Hybrid
• £100 per night/ £150 for weekend / £200 for a Sunday ?
• Company car when travelling to site