Operations Manager

Are you a natural leader with management experience and an interest in renewable energy and helping a company grow? If so, we have an exciting opportunity for you!

Who we are

At Midsummer, we're passionate about reducing carbon emissions, and from humble beginnings we have grown to be one of the biggest players in the distribution of renewable energy products such as solar PV, battery storage, and heat pumps in the UK and Ireland.

We stand out from the crowd thanks in part to our market-leading software for designing systems, but we also specialise in building great relationships with our trade customers to keep them coming back for our service and our well-chosen range of products. Our operations team is crucial in helping us to deliver excellent quality and service that our customers rely on, allowing us to lead the market as a renewables distributor.

The role

As operations manager you will lead a large team and will be responsible for operations being conducted safely, efficiently and productively. Your duties will include:

• Management: You will manage the operations and warehousing teams across our UK sites, working closely with the Personnel Manager to ensure that you have a well-trained, satisfied and productive workforce.
• Health and Safety oversight: You will be the appointed Health and Safety Officer for the company, ensuring that all operations are conducted safely and that we meet all statutory requirements.
• Stock control: Working closely with the purchasing department, you will ensure our stock system and the real-time stock listings for products are accurate.
• Logistics: You will ensure that customers receive deliveries reliably and promptly. You will continue to build out our own in-house logistics fleet.
• Processes and productivity: You will help to identify and implement process improvements, as well as tracking and optimising departmental KPIs around quality, efficiency and safety. You will help the warehouse teams to foster a culture of safety and productivity. You will be responsible for ensuring our operations run cost-effectively.

You will report to the Commercial Director and work closely with senior colleagues across our personnel, finance and purchasing departments.

About you

You are a natural leader. People trust you, and you set the tone by example. You notice when someone is working hard or going beyond what's asked, and you make sure that effort is recognised. You're equally comfortable with the harder conversations — when performance or conduct falls short, you address it early, clearly and kindly, and you follow through.

You are good with data and processes as well as people. You can pull numbers out of a system, see what they're really telling you, and use them to make a decision. You spot where a process isn’t working, redesign it, and get people to actually adopt the new way of working. You manage your own time well and prioritise clearly.

You show initiative, coming up with fresh ideas and seeing them through to execution. You are organised and comfortable managing multiple contacts with different people every day.

You are a good team player. You work collaboratively and respectfully with colleagues to move projects forward. You're visible and approachable: people know who you are and feel able to come to you.

You are enthusiastic about renewable energy and the energy transition. You want a career that makes a real difference. You'd love to put your skills to work helping to accelerate the shift to clean energy.

We expect most applicants to have a background in warehouse or operations - prior experience would of course be an advantage. However, we’re also open to hearing from people with transferable skills.

What we offer

You'll be joining a young, dynamic company with positive values that is aiming to position itself as the leading distributor of renewable energy systems in the UK. As our Operations Manager you will play a pivotal role in ensuring our day to day operations run smoothly and efficiently. This will be a challenging but fulfilling position with a lot of responsibility.

We are open to the position being based either in our head office neighbouring Milton Country Park on the outskirts of Cambridge, or in the new offices we will shortly be opening in Garforth, to the east of Leeds. As you will be covering operational management at all three of our UK sites (and there could be more in future) there will be regular travel to oversee staff and operations at the sites at which you are not based.

Salary will be between £60,000 and £80,000, commensurate with experience. You will also be eligible for the company’s profit share scheme which rewards all employees when the company does well.

You will get 25 days holiday every year (plus bank holidays) and you will be enrolled in the company pension scheme.

All our employees also get a free bag of delicious, fresh, locally-grown organic veg every week.