Lab Leader (Dental Technician)

Laboratory Leader

Reports to: Operations Director

About the opportunity

Our client is seeking a Laboratory Leader to take full responsibility for the performance, output, and leadership of a specialist laboratory operation. This is a senior leadership role focused on driving operational excellence, achieving commercial targets, improving team performance, and embedding high standards across quality, compliance, and health and safety.

The successful candidate will lead the site team, implement improvement plans, and work closely with senior leadership to deliver sustainable growth.

Key responsibilities

Commercial and operational leadership

• Deliver sales and EBITDA targets for the business
• Work with senior leadership to create and execute annual sales and profit plans
• Implement group strategy at site level
• Develop and deliver gross profit improvement plans
• Improve operational efficiency, capacity, and manufacturing output
• Identify and implement process improvements across the laboratory

People leadership

• Recruit, retain, and develop high-performing teams
• Build succession plans for key roles
• Create development plans for critical and high-potential employees
• Support staff engagement initiatives and action plans following employee feedback
• Foster a high-performance, inclusive, and team-oriented culture

Quality, compliance, and systems

• Ensure compliance with quality assurance procedures and all statutory health and safety requirements
• Maintain GDPR compliance across the business
• Support IT integration and implementation of business systems
• Ensure site alignment with company branding, policies, and wider business initiatives
• Support procurement initiatives to improve purchasing efficiency

Qualifications

• Degree educated or equivalent technical qualification

Experience

• General management experience required
• Experience in a dental or laboratory environment would be beneficial, but is not essential

Skills

• Strong leadership and team development capability
• Commercially aware and target focused
• Operationally strong with an execution mindset
• Comfortable driving change and performance improvement
• Strong stakeholder management and communication skills

Personal attributes

• Dynamic and driven
• Inspirational people leader
• Inclusive and team minded
• Resilient and emotionally controlled
• Kind, motivated, and performance focused

Systems

• Microsoft Office 365 including Teams, Excel, Word, PowerPoint, and Outlook

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