This role carries full operational and financial accountability for one region. It is not a coordination role sitting between the Operations and Infrastructure Director and the depots, it is the point of ownership for whether the region delivers what it is supposed to deliver, at the cost it is supposed to cost.
Three things define success in this role: the region runs safely and reliably, it delivers against its agreed budget, and it delivers the commercial volumes the business has sold. All three are owned by this role, not shared out to whichever function feels closest to the problem when something goes wrong.
Why NWF Fuels?
- Monthly Pay: £63,000 to £85,000 per annum dependant on experience
- Car: Car allowance paid monthly
- Bonus: Up too 25% performance based
- Shifts: Monday to Friday
- Holidays: 33 days per year including bank holidays
- Progression Opportunities: Clear progression pathways within Fuels and across the wider group that operates 2 other business'
- Training Opportunities: Funded, accredited courses.
- Medicash: Cashback on routine medical expenses such as dental, optical, physiotherapy and more!
- Shopping Discounts: Save with discounts at major retailers like Sainsbury's, Morrisons, Currys, Debenhams and more!
- Travel Savings: Discounts on flights, hotels, and airport parking.
- Entertainment Offers: Reduced prices at over 400 cinemas across the UK, including savings on drinks and snacks.
- Dining and Lifestyle: Access to deals on restaurants, leisure activities, and other lifestyle services.
- Enhanced Policies: Enhanced maternity and paternity leave.
- The Usual: Company Pension Scheme, Life Assurance, Cycle to Work Scheme, Employee Assistance Programme including counselling, legal and financial support, Free Refreshments, Free Secure On-Site Parking!
Day to Day
Leadership and team management
- Lead, coach and hold accountable the Regional Transport & Depot Managers and Regional Planner within the region.
- Set clear performance expectations for depot and transport teams, including Transport Coordinators, Depot Lead Tanker Drivers and the wider driver population.
- Own recruitment, onboarding and workforce planning for the region, working with HR on driver recruitment specifically, given the tight labour market for qualified tanker drivers.
- Build a culture of operational discipline and accountability across the region, depots and transport teams run to a standard, not to whatever gets the job done on the day.
- Conduct regular site visits across the region's depots; this is not a role run from behind a desk.
Financial oversight and budget ownership
- Own full financial accountability for the region - operating costs, labour, fuel, maintenance, and overheads - against the agreed regional budget.
- Set the regional budget each year in partnership with the Operations and Infrastructure Director and the Finance Director, and defend it with realistic, evidenced assumptions.
- Review regional financial performance monthly, investigate variances against budget, and put corrective action in place before small overruns become structural cost problems.
- Own cost per delivery and cost to serve for the region, and treat it as a working number in every operational decision - routing, shift patterns, overtime, and depot resourcing.
- Manage overtime and agency driver spend deliberately, understanding the trade-off between short-term coverage and long-term cost control.
- Report regional financial performance to the Operations and Infrastructure Director on a regular cycle, with clear commentary on drivers of variance, not just the numbers themselves.
Delivering commercial volumes
- Own delivery of the region's agreed commercial volumes, the litres and orders the business has sold and committed to deliver.
- Work closely with the Regional Customer Retention & Growth Manager to align operational capacity with sales demand, so that commercial growth in the region is never constrained by a lack of transport or depot capacity the operation failed to plan for.
- Monitor on-time-in-full delivery performance and treat it as a direct driver of client retention, not a purely operational metric.
- Plan depot and driver capacity ahead of known seasonal and demand peaks, rather than reacting to them once volumes have already been missed.
- Escalate early wherever operational capacity is at risk of falling short of what the business has committed to deliver.
Health, safety and compliance
- Own health and safety performance across the region's depots, transport operations and driver population, working with the Health & Safety Manager on standards and incident investigation.
- Ensure full compliance with tanker driver licensing, working time regulations, and all relevant fuel distribution and transport legislation.
- Maintain vehicle and depot safety standards, working with the Head of Fleet on maintenance scheduling and vehicle compliance.
- Investigate incidents and near misses thoroughly, and ensure lessons are embedded across the region, not just closed out on paper.
Cross-functional collaboration
- Work with the Head of Fleet on vehicle availability, maintenance planning and fleet investment priorities for the region.
- Work with the Regional Customer Retention & Growth Manager on service commitments, delivery scheduling and capacity planning.
- Work with the QA Trainer on driver and depot team training standards.
- Share best practice and consistent operating standards with the other Regional General Managers, so the operating model is genuinely consistent across regions.
Reporting and governance
- Maintain accurate regional reporting on cost, delivery performance, safety and headcount.
- Maintain up-to-date people records for the region in My HR.
- Ensure team compliance with the expenses process, reviewing and approving claims in line with policy.
- Ensure GDPR and data handling standards are met across all operational records and driver data.
What will you bring?
- Proven experience managing a multi-site transport, distribution or depot operation with full financial accountability.
- Track record of delivering against an operating budget, including managing variance and driving corrective action.
- Experience in fuel distribution, logistics, or a similarly regulated, safety-critical transport environment.
- Experience managing a driver workforce, including licensing, working time compliance and shift-based resourcing.
- Experience managing managers, not just individual contributors.
- Financially literate. reads P&L and cost data fluently and uses it to manage the region, not just report on it.
- Operationally credible, understands depot and transport operations well enough to challenge and support the teams running them.
- Strong on health and safety, treats it as a leadership responsibility, not a compliance function to delegate.
- Confident collaborator works effectively with commercial, fleet and central functions without losing ownership of regional outcomes.
- Comfortable making trade-off decisions between cost, capacity and service under real time pressure.
- Owns the numbers for the region budget, volumes and safety without deflecting to other functions when performance is off plan.
- Visible and present across the region's depots, not just in review meetings.
- Direct and clear with underperformance, in the team and in themselves.
- Calm under pressure, particularly during operational disruption or safety incidents.
Who are NWF Fuels?
NWF Group comprises of 3 key businesses: NWF Fuels, NWF Agriculture & Boughey Distribution. Employing over 1,400 colleagues across the group, we encourage and empower our people to progress and move fluidly through the group, meaning the sky really is the limit when you join us!
What makes NWF Fuels different? Our commitment to the customer and our focus on service is what sets us apart in the market, and our people are the driving force! We supply a range of fuel related products throughout the UK to domestic, agricultural, commercial and retail customers through our modern fleet of over 155 tankers and a strategically located depot network allowing us to service more than 113k customers. The business has grown organically and through acquisition currently standing as the third largest fuel distributor in the UK - we plan to climb higher and want you to be a part of it!
We are an equal opportunities employer and welcome applications from all suitably qualified persons regardless of their race, sex, disability, religion/belief, sexual orientation or age.