Senior Environmental Health Safety Specialist

An excellent opportunity to join the EMEA EHS team in a senior, field-based position where you will support more than 40 sites across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

 

Safety is at the core of our culture. In this highly visible role, you will serve as the lead EHS technical expert across your assigned scope, partnering with employees, managers and customers to promote safe working practices, strengthen our EHS culture and drive continuous improvement.

 

You will work across a variety of environments, from customer sites and laboratories to commercial operations, helping to ensure compliance, reduce risk and support sustainable business performance.

 

This role is primarily remote-based, with regular travel throughout the UK. While home-based working is supported, occasional attendance at meetings, conferences and team events in our Manchester and Coventry offices may be required.

 

What will you do?

• Act as the lead EHS technical expert for Fluidcare, Commercial Operations, Laboratories and Sales activities across the UK, driving a strong safety culture and continuous improvement.
• Implement and enhance EHS programs, policies, procedures and risk-reduction initiatives, promoting safe behaviours and personal accountability across the business.
• Lead and support investigations of incidents, near misses and hazard observations, ensuring robust root-cause analysis and the effective implementation of Corrective and Preventive Actions (CAPA).
• Monitor EHS performance, trends, leading indicators and lessons learned to identify risks and improvement opportunities.
• Support the implementation and effective use of EHS management systems and software, ensuring compliance, action tracking and performance reporting.
• Provide technical guidance on occupational health, industrial hygiene and workplace exposure management, partnering with HR and Operations as required.
• Support and maintain EHS management systems, including ISO 14001 and ISO 45001, helping sites demonstrate compliance with corporate and regulatory requirements.
• Act as a key resource for EHS training and competency programs, supporting employee inductions, refresher training and ongoing awareness initiatives.
• Provide expert guidance on risk assessments, including job task, chemical, PPE and process hazard assessments (HAZOPs), ensuring findings and actions are effectively addressed.
• Conduct EHS audits, inspections and compliance assessments across multiple customer and company locations, identifying sustainable improvements and ensuring timely closure of actions.
• Build strong relationships with customers, operational leaders and other stakeholders, representing Quaker Houghton during audits, meetings and customer engagements.
• Maintain knowledge of relevant UK EHS legislation, regulations and industry best practices, ensuring changing requirements are reflected in company processes.

 

What do we look for?

• Experience: Significant experience in Environmental, Health & Safety, ideally gained within chemical, manufacturing, industrial, engineering, or related environments.
• Multi-Site Environment: Experience supporting multiple sites, customers or business locations rather than a single site operation.
• Auditing & Compliance: Practical experience conducting EHS audits, inspections, incident investigations and compliance assessments.
• Risk Assessment: Strong knowledge of risk assessment methodologies, including chemical risk assessments and workplace hazard evaluations.
• Management Systems: Experience supporting or maintaining ISO 14001 and/or ISO 45001 management systems.
• Industry Knowledge: Experience within the chemical industry or fluid management sector would be highly advantageous.
• Education: Bachelor's degree or equivalent qualification in a relevant discipline preferred.
• Professional Qualification: NEBOSH General Certificate or equivalent preferred. NEBOSH Diploma or ProQual Level 6 or equivalent advance qualification would be high desirable
• IT Skills: MS Office, MS Teams, O365 and ability to learn and utilize EHS software systems.
• Location: Based in the United Kingdom.
• Travel: Comfortable travelling extensively throughout the UK, including regular overnight stays (typically 6-8 nights per month) and frequent visits to customer locations.

 

Soft Skills

• Autonomous and proactive.
• Strong relationship-building and stakeholder management skills.
• Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal.
• Confident engaging with customers and employees from diverse backgrounds and organisational levels.
• Practical problem solver with strong attention to detail.
• Ability to work independently while remaining a collaborative team player.
• Passionate about safety, continuous improvement and delivering results.

 

What's in it For You?

• Flexible home-based working.
• Company car.
• QH University: Continuous training programs for all seniority levels.
• 2 annual days paid volunteering leave.
• Attractive Wellbeing, Mental Health, Women Inclusion & other DEI programs.
• Opportunity to work closely with customers and operational teams across the UK.
• Exposure to regional EHS initiatives and projects across EMEA.

 

Who are we?

 

We are the global leader in industrial process fluids present in 40+ countries continually improving and innovating so the world’s steel, aluminum, automotive, aircraft, machinery and industrial parts manufacturers can stay ahead in a changing world. Throughout our 100+ locations, our chemists, engineers and industry experts partner with our customers to continually improve their operations so they can run even more efficiently, even more effectively, whatever comes next.

 

Our values:

• Live Safe
• Exceed Customer Expectations
• Drive Results
• Embrace Diversity
• Do Great Things Together
• Act with integrity

 

Our core values embody who we are as a company, guide our decisions and inspire us. Our commitment to these values, in words and actions, builds a safer, stronger Quaker Houghton. They are the fundamental beliefs that guide our internal conduct and our relationship with the outside world.