Job Description

Employee Type
Full Time
Hours Per Week
37.5
Clearance Required for Role
SC
Vacancy Type
Permanent
Town/Region
Ampthill - Bedfordshire
Graduate, Intern or Apprentice Vacancy?
No
Required skills, qualifications and experience

• Team Leadership & Supervision (

50%)

• Lead, coach, and manage a team of up to 10 CNC machinists and technicians, overseeing day-to-day operations.
• Ensure adequate staffing, skills coverage, and shift handovers in line with production demands.
• Conduct regular performance reviews, provide feedback, and support professional development through mentoring and skills matrix assessments.
• Own and manage the assigned production cell/facility to ensure full operational readiness and compliance.
• Schedule and prioritise workloads to meet programme deliverables, internal milestones, and customer deadlines.
• Provide hands-on technical support for CNC programming, machine setup, tooling selection, and problem-solving
• Promote and maintain a strong safety culture, ensuring full compliance with HSE standards and best practices.
• Drive awareness and accountability across the team for safe operations and clean work environments (6S and FOD control).
• Vison and drive to support the delivery of a world class machining facility
• Track, manage and deliver key KPI metrics: Safety, Quality, Schedule Adherence, Cost, and On-Time Delivery.
• Lead root cause analysis and problem-solving initiatives to address machining or assembly issues.
• Champion continuous improvement activities, including lean manufacturing, cost reduction, and process optimisation.
• Work closely with Manufacturing Engineering, Design, Quality, Planning, and Materials teams to ensure seamless workflow and timely resolution of issues.
• Provide feedback to Engineering and Design teams to improve manufacturability and reduce production cycle times.
• Collaborate with other Team Leaders to support load balancing, shared resourcing, and best practice deployment across the wider manufacturing function.
• CNC Operation (

50%)

• Support and input to the development of machining processes and tooling/fixture design.
• Ability of tool selection/optimisation and design liaising with tooling suppliers.
• Mentoring and training of others which may include apprentices.
• Working to specifications, procedures and engineering drawings.
• Develop and improve work procedures/processes with engineering team.
• Problem solve machine issues and facilitate corrective action plans.
• Ability to prioritise work load in order to meet deliverable commitments and support production schedule to optimise machine utilisation.
• Demonstrates high quality standards and drive / support improvement initiatives.

Discipline
Manufacturing
Business Environment
Lockheed Martin (UK) Ampthill is a rapidly changing, dynamic part of the Lockheed Martin Corporation with both domestic and international customers. It consists of business areas focusing on Platform Integration, Ground Based Air Defence, Special Projects and Weapons, which provide a variety of products and services to the Ministry of Defence and other customers. We are looking for talented individuals to join the company, in return we offer an exciting and challenging career path and excellent work/life balance with a 4 day week (Mon-Thurs) and flexible working arrangements.
About the Role
The CNC Manufacturing Team Lead is a hybrid Leadership / Hands-On role that commands daily operations of a low-volume, high-cost production environment focused on critical hardware and R&D components.
The position demands experience of multiple axis CNC milling machines and a proven ability to motivate and coach a team of up to ten skilled machinists.

• The leadership aspect will be accountable for safety, quality, delivery, and cost performance while driving continuous improvement and cross-functional collaboration. Working within a CNC precision machine shop environment.
• The machinist aspect responsible for programming, setting and tool selection, proving out and operating multiple machine tools including multi axis machining centres with various programming language's (3 to 6 axis) to produce R&D, high value 1 off or low volume production component parts.
• Machine types to include Matsuura. Correanayak, Hurco,
• Programming languages Fanuc and Heidenhain

Working Schedule
4xFlex
What we offer you
At Lockheed Martin our employees come first and therefore your physical, mental and financial wellbeing matters to us. On top of working in a highly supportive, friendly, respectful environment you can expect so much more.
We are an employer in support of and offering Flexible working with the option to also work a 4 day week depending on business requirements, where you have the option of Fridays off. We offer Competitive salaries alongside a flexible holiday entitlement.
We have a Wealth of benefits available to you that can be selected through our wellbeing tool upon commencement of employment. Just a few of our amazing benefits are shown below:

• Private Medical Insurance
• Competitive Pension
• Dental
• Critical Illness
• Life Assurance
• Travel Insurance
• Employee discounts for top high street shops
• Employee Assistance Program which includes free face to face counseling sessions, Legal advice, Financial advice, etc
• Internal training and development alongside our Education assistance programmes
• Reimbursement for a professional membership
• Competitive policies that support flexibility and family leave inclusive of enhanced maternity leave

Salary Range
42,000-47,000

Skills Required