For organizations with a production line, a good Maintenance Manager is indispensable, and occupies a key position in the company. Job security in this exciting position is therefore guaranteed.
Deniz Garip, Recruitment Consultant Engineering & Supply chain at international recruitment firm Robert Walters, reveals the responsibilities and career opportunities of a Maintenance Manager, and what salary you can expect in this role.
What exactly does a Maintenance Manager do?
The Maintenance Manager is responsible for maintaining the factory installations and monitoring the correct operation of the machines. This is done by performing checks and reporting and following up on malfunctions. Deniz: "As a Maintenance Manager, you manage a team of Maintenance Engineers and technicians. On average, you lead a team of 10 to 20 people, depending on the size of the organization.
To jeopardize the continuity of production as little as possible, the Maintenance Manager works closely with the Production Manager. A good collaboration with the Health & Safety manager is also required, to ensure that production runs according to the right standards. If, for example, the carbon emission standards change, the installations also need to be adapted with a view to greener production.
Furthermore, the job also involves a bit of planning. The Maintenance Manager charts the life cycle of the plant's various installations and draws up investment planning for the coming years based on this."
What education and skills do you need to become a Maintenance Manager?
For a Maintenance Manager position, companies are looking for professionals with an engineering degree, specialized in electromechanics. Multilingualism is usually a must: Dutch and/or French to communicate with the technicians and the production team, combined with English to report to external parties.
"A Maintenance Manager is in contact with various internal departments, as well as external parties," Deniz continues. "Strong communication skills are therefore essential in this role. Above all, you must have a listening ear to understand the different needs of all parties within the organization. You will also need extensive technical knowledge and a strong analytical understanding of the production processes to adapt the installations adequately.
Since, as a Maintenance Manager, you lead a team and often supervise several projects at the same time, managerial skills and organizational skills are a must."
What is the current demand for Maintenance Managers?
"The number of vacancies for Maintenance Managers is high. We see a great shortage of technical talent on the Belgian labour market today," says Deniz. "That's why companies do well opening up to international talents. Given the required language skills in this role, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland are particularly interesting to look for talent. Moreover, these countries use the same type of factory installations, making technical knowledge quasi fully transferable when switching to a Belgian employee." For companies struggling to find talent or still hesitant to venture into the international market, Robert Walters' Engineering & Supply Chain team offers assistance in recruiting international talent.
What are the career opportunities for a Maintenance Manager?
Deniz: "As a Maintenance Manager, you can go in different directions. On the one hand, there is the option to grow into a strategic role within investment projects and planning. For example, when the organization opens a new site, in this role you can act as an expert to map out the installations for the new production line. Additional training in Business Administration can be a plus in this respect.
In addition, you can also evolve into a position within Project Engineering. You will become part of the engineering team, but you will still remain closely involved in maintenance. Many Engineering Directors have emerged from a maintenance role, precisely because a thorough knowledge of the installations is crucial."
What salary can you expect as a Maintenance Manager?
"A Maintenance Manager with 3 to 6 years of experience can expect a gross annual salary between 70k EUR and 80k EUR," says Deniz. "With 6 to 10 years of experience, the average gross annual salary is 80k EUR to 90k EUR. If you have 10 years of experience or more, you can see your gross annual salary grow to 90k EUR – 107k EUR. This salary is usually part of an interesting salary package including a company car, bonus, meal vouchers, net expense allowance and group and hospitalization insurance."
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