Special Operations Manager UK

Compensation range: £50,497 - £88,955 (depending on the level)

The position

The UK is one of Hive's most important and fastest-growing markets, and our Stoke-on-Trent fulfilment centre is the operational heart of it.

As Special Operations Manager UK, you will be Hive's person on the ground at MAN1. You own how the site performs for our merchants, and you are the bridge between our 3PL partner's floor teams and Hive's commercial, product and merchant-facing teams. Your job is not to run the warehouse, our partner does that. Your job is to make sure the operation delivers for merchants, and to keep raising the ceiling on what the site can do. This is a role with real ownership and real visibility, and you are the face of Hive Operations for the UK. You do it on the floor, rather than from a desk.

As part of this role, you will:

• Own the health of the UK fulfilment operation from goods receipt through picking, packing and handover to the carrier. The job is done when the parcel is properly handed over, not when the label is printed
• Be accountable for site performance against Hive's operational KPIs, with a health score consistently at or above 85% and no dips in merchant satisfaction
• Independently own the daily relationship with our fulfilment partner on site, covering operational reviews, audits, performance meetings and escalations, and be the first point of contact for the site 
• Be visible on the floor, with regular Gemba walks, presence at shift start during peaks, and time genuinely spent close to the work and the merchants you serve
• Drive productivity and cost efficiency with the partner (layout and slotting, packaging and process design, staffing and shift planning input), quantify the impact of what you change, and supply the operational evidence our Partner Managers need to challenge invoices and costs
• Run systematic root-cause and corrective-action analysis when things go wrong, and own critical (SEV1) escalations from start to finish. Step into daily operations when a merchant would otherwise be hurt, then fix the cause so it does not happen again
• Own continuous training and enablement of the partner's teams, from pickers and packers to supervisors and site leadership, so that the site becomes more independent over time
• Lead the onboarding and ramp-up of new merchants at the site, and support new capabilities, tooling and WMS rollouts on the floor, bringing at least one measurable improvement initiative per quarter
• Set the operational vision for the site by defining the OKRs and the plan for the next three to six months, proposing broader improvement projects, and looking beyond the individual FC as the UK network grows
• Work closely with Merchant Care, Account Management, Growth and Product to translate merchant needs into operational reality, and keep every stakeholder informed before they have to ask

Your profile

We know, sometimes you can't tick every box. We would still love to hear from you if you think you're a good fit!

• You have 3 to 5 years of experience in fulfilment, warehousing, logistics, supply chain or a fast growing startup, including time spent in a live operation. You are comfortable on a warehouse floor
• You have owned an operational relationship with a 3PL, carrier or other external partner from start to finish, and you know how to hold a partner accountable without damaging the relationship. You get things done through influence rather than through a reporting line
• You are analytically strong: you pull your own data, build the model, and use numbers to drive performance conversations and to quantify the return on the changes you make
• You understand contracts, SLAs and cost drivers well enough to derive action points from them, and you can tell an operational problem from a commercial one
• You communicate with anyone, coaching a picker in the morning and presenting to a partner's regional director in the afternoon. You flag problems the moment they appear rather than when they land
• You work with an entrepreneurial mentality: nothing too small, nothing too big, and you go the extra mile to solve problems sustainably rather than patching them
• You have experience working with a diverse, multicultural workforce and with teams working across shifts
• You manage conflicting priorities and switch context quickly between floor operations and strategic work, without needing to be told what to prioritise
• You have excellent communication skills and fluency in English; additional languages are a plus
• You are based in or willing to relocate to the Stoke-on-Trent area, and you are happy to work onsite

Our offering