Head of Health and Safety

Head of Health and Safety
Location: Wrexham
Working pattern: 5 days per week on site
Duration: Interim, initially 3-4 months with potential to extend
Day rate: £400-£600 per day, depending on experience
Start: Immediate / within 1-2 weeks

Sellick Partnership are supporting a public sector organisation with the recruitment of an experienced Head of Health and Safety for an urgent interim appointment.

This is a hands-on operational leadership role. We are looking for an experienced Health and Safety professional who is comfortable being visible across the organisation, getting into the detail and taking ownership of the day-to-day Health and Safety function.

The successful candidate will provide practical operational leadership, ensuring robust Health and Safety management, compliance, risk management, incident investigation and safe working practices are embedded across the organisation.

This would particularly suit someone who has previously led a Health and Safety function within a complex, operational or multi-site environment and is comfortable balancing leadership responsibilities with hands-on delivery.

Key responsibilities

• Lead the day-to-day delivery and management of the Health and Safety function.
• Provide visible, practical Health and Safety leadership across the organisation.
• Ensure compliance with relevant Health and Safety legislation and statutory requirements.
• Ensure policies, procedures and management systems are robust, current and consistently implemented.
• Lead on workplace inspections, audits, risk assessments and corrective actions.
• Oversee the investigation and reporting of incidents, accidents and near misses.
• Identify operational risks and ensure appropriate controls and mitigating actions are implemented.
• Provide practical advice, guidance and challenge to managers and operational teams.
• Monitor Health and Safety performance and ensure issues are followed through to resolution.
• Support emergency preparedness, business continuity and resilience activity.
• Lead, support and develop employees within the Health and Safety function.
• Promote a strong, practical and accountable safety culture across the organisation.

What we're looking for

We're particularly interested in candidates who can come in and take operational ownership quickly, rather than someone whose experience has been predominantly strategic or policy focused.

You will ideally bring:

• Significant experience leading an operational Health and Safety function.
• A strong track record of hands-on Health and Safety management in a complex organisation.
• The credibility to work with senior leaders while remaining closely connected to operational teams.
• Strong experience of risk assessments, audits, inspections, incident investigation and compliance.
• The ability to identify issues quickly and drive actions through to completion.
• Experience working across multiple sites, services or operational environments would be advantageous.
• Strong stakeholder management and communication skills.
• The ability to hit the ground running in an interim environment.

Qualifications

• Chartered Member of IOSH.
• NEBOSH qualification/certification or equivalent relevant Health and Safety qualification.
• Leadership/management qualification and/or significant leadership experience.

This position requires a significant on-site operational presence.

Candidates must:

• Be able to commute to Wrexham five days per week.
• Be comfortable working fully on site rather than on a hybrid basis.
• Be available to start within the next 1-2 weeks.

Because of the urgent nature of the requirement, we would particularly welcome applications from candidates who are immediately available or coming to the end of an existing assignment.

Sellick Partnership is proud to be an inclusive and accessible recruitment business and we support applications from candidates of all backgrounds and circumstances. Please note, our advertisements use years' experience, hourly rates, and salary levels purely as a guide and we assess applications based on the experience and skills evidenced on the CV. For information on how your personal details may be used by Sellick Partnership, please review our data processing notice on our website.