What is a Technical Management Career?
Technical roles in the food industry are vital in producing and maintaining high-quality and safe products for consumers. In this type of role, you will be responsible for all technical aspects of food manufacturing within the business. This includes managing quality systems and food safety. You will also be responsible for ensuring that all processes meet legal and regulated requirements.
You will also develop a culture of quality, assurance and hygiene among staff. In technical roles, you will also help the company with strategic developments and represent the company as a senior at events and functions.
You will be involved in multiple department projects that support technical teams. The departments you will be working with include quality, hygiene, labs, labelling and legislative issues etc.
Routes into a Technical Manager Role:
- High-level / higher-level apprenticeship
- Applying directly
- University degree
- Training with a professional body such as MDS
Skills and Knowledge
Within technical management roles, the skills you will need can be broken down into soft and hard skills. Soft skills are more transferable skills, whereas hard skills focus more on technical ability. There are many kinds of soft and hard skills but we will break down the most common ones.
Technical Management Soft Skills
- Coordination
- Planning
- Communication
- Teamwork
- Organisational skills
- High attention to detail
Technical Management Hard Skills
- Business and stakeholder management
- Analytical skills
- Leadership
- Time-management
- Health & Safety/Quality Assurance
What you will be doing:
- Directing the organisation’s quality management system to ensure compliance with standards set by regulators such as British Retail Consortium (BRC) and Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) are upheld with procedures on food handling
- Reviewing policies and planning how to improve quality management systems
- Implementing improvements to all systems that the business uses
- Representing the business when it comes to all technical-related matters
- Managing company hygiene, quality and laboratory activities
- Testing and analysing the quality of products
- Liaising with senior business management, suppliers and customers to report on safety and quality in order to further develop and expand the business
- Managing the budget for the Technical Team
- Supporting other departments when needed or required to
Career Options:
There are a lot of career prospects in Technical Management and you can be employed across a variety of areas. These include but are not limited to:
- QA
- Process Manager
- Technical Assistant
- Technical Manager/Co-ordinator
- Head of Technical
