Leading Automotive Recruitment
ATA Recruitment is a trusted and experienced automotive recruitment company delivering high-performing engineering and technical talent into the heart of the UK automotive sector. With more than 60 years of experience supporting the evolving needs of manufacturing, we understand the pace, precision, and quality demands unique to automotive.
Automotive is not just a sector, it’s a national engine of innovation and productivity. With over 182,000 people employed and £67 billion generated annually for the UK economy, the industry plays a vital role in global trade and technological advancement. The pressure to meet quality, sustainability, and safety expectations is intense, making the quality of recruitment a mission-critical factor.
At ATA, we are more than just recruiters, we are strategic partners. Whether you're a Tier 1 supplier needing a specialist Quality Engineer or an OEM looking for long-term leadership talent, we have the networks, industry insight, and recruitment frameworks to help you compete and grow.
ATA's Consultative Approach to Automotive Recruitment
Our success is built on a consultative approach. We don’t believe in generic CVs or keyword matches, we invest time in understanding your business, culture, and technical challenges. That includes site visits, process shadowing, market benchmarking, and feedback loops.
For our clients, this means less time wasted on misaligned candidates, and more focus on onboarding people who deliver from day one. For candidates, it means receiving opportunities that match their career goals, skillsets, and values.
Supporting Automotive Candidates
We provide automotive professionals with access to exclusive roles, career advice, and onboarding support. Many of our candidates return to us when they’re ready for their next challenge, a testament to the trust we build. Whether you’re seeking career progression or a new direction in automotive, we help you get there faster.
OUR AREAS OF EXPERTISE
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Permanent Recruitment
Maintenance Engineer
Maintenance Manager
Project Engineer
Programme Manager
Design Engineer
Continuous Improvement Engineer
Health and Safety
Quality Engineer
Production Engineer
NPI Engineer
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Contract Recruitment
Maintenance Engineer
Maintenance Team Leader
Project Engineer
Design Engineer
Continuous Improvement
Health and Safety
Quality Engineer
Quality Inspector
NPI Engineer
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Interim Recruitment
Project Manager
Programme Manager
Maintenance Manager
Engineering Manager
Plant Manager
Operations Manager
Engineering Director
Technical Director
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ATA Search
Engineering Manager
Operations Manager
Quality Manager
Production Manager
Plant Manager
General Manager
Engineering Director
Technical Director
Operations Director
Managing Director
Latest Jobs In Automotive
Senior Process & Product Engineer
£45000 - 60000 per year Nine Day Fortnight
Somerset
Senior Process & Product Engineer Somerset £45,000 - £60,000 + Excellent Benefits + 9 Day Fortnight The Company We are working on an exciting Senior Process & Product Engineer role which offers a huge variety of interesting, challenging and diverse tasks across NPI, Process Improvement, customer liaison, supplier liaison and design for a forward thinking business in the circular economy space. Sound interesting? Read on………… Our client employs 70 staff and is a specialist Automotive supplier working in partnership with OEM’s to provide high-quality re-manufactured parts. After being established over 70 years ago they have been through modernisation in recent decades and are seeing huge year on year growth as they continue strengthening their relationship with one of the leading Automotive manufactures in the UK. They are looking to recruit for a Senior Process & Product Engineer with immediate effect. The Role The Senior Process & Product Engineer will deal with a wide range of interesting and complex challenges in their role. They key facets for the role will be: New Product Introduction – This will involve liaison with customers on new assemblies from initial customer meetings, through capability review, supplier development, prototype production right through to customer sign off and approvals on new assemblies. Maintenance of existing production programmes – Identifying issues during assembly and analysis and problem solving to identify opportunities for improved process. Line Efficiency Gains – Identifying bottlenecks in assembly and providing solutions – typical problems you could be reviewing are tooling issues, inefficient line lay out, part availability at line or quality of process instruction documentation. Line Balancing – Optimising flow of assembly lines for maximum efficiency Design of tooling – Circa 20% of the role is spent on Solid Edge producing 3D models and manufacturing drawings for external manufacturing of tooling and work holding fixtures which consist of sheet metal and machined components Specifying out and buying new equipment needed for assembly lines. The Candidate To be successful in your application for this Senior Process & Product Engineer role you will need: A practical approach to problem solving To be comfortable customer facing To have worked in either a manufacturing engineer, process engineer or NPI related role within an engineering or manufacturing setting. To be strong analysing data and information A desire to learn The business can support with training on CAD but any supporting CAD experience is a benefit. The Benefits For this Senior Process & Product Engineer role you will receive: £45,000 - £60,000 basic salary dependant upon experience A nine day fortnight – the business works Monday – Thursday every other week. The opportunity to work for a department head with a huge passion for the role and over 10 years with the business If you are interested in applying for this Senior Process & Product Engineer role please send your CV to Stewart Jackson at stewart.jackson@ata-recruitment.co.uk ATA Recruitment specialises in Manufacturing, Infrastructure, Civil, Transportation and general Engineering recruitment on both a permanent and contract basis – for more opportunities like this one, visit our website. By applying you accept the terms of our Privacy Notice which can be found on our website. ATA is committed to creating a diverse workforce and is an equal opportunities employer. We welcome applications from all suitably qualified persons regardless of age, disability, gender, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation
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Senior Quality Engineer
£45000 - 45000 per year Nine Day Fortnight
Somerset
Senior Quality Engineer Somerset £45,000 + Excellent Benefits + 9 Day Fortnight The Company We are looking to speak with aspirational candidates who have a background in leadership within a stores, inventory or materials management environment who want to join a business who can offer fast tracked career development into senior management positions. Our client is a specialist Automotive supplier working in partnership with OEM's to provide high-quality re-manufactured parts. After being established over 70 years ago they have been through modernisation in recent decades and are seeing huge year on year growth as they continue strengthening their relationship with one of the leading Automotive manufactures in the UK. The company employs 70+ staff and has a £multi-million turnover. Over recent years, with a new Health, Safety & Quality Manager at the helm they have made huge inroads in creating a more effective and robust quality department and now require a Senior Quality Engineer to continue with this work. The Role The Senior Quality Engineer will work alongside the Health, Safety & Quality Manager and the other members of the team to reduce repeat mistakes and identify areas of repeatable improvement. Key daily responsibilities will include; Raising the Right First Time percentage rate for completed assemblied - after each product is assembled, if it results in failure at testing, problem solving will be carried out alongside root cause analysis on the failures to understand them and identify corrective measures for future assemblies Collecting data over a period of time to identify trends, continually reviewing after corrective measures put in place to ensure trends in right direction . Reviewing and enhancing SOPs - Auditing and reviewing existing SOP's to ensure they are enforced and identifying where they are lacking, to build revisions and improvements into the QMS system. Maintaining accreditations in place Hosting external audits - taking any non-conformances from these and running 8D's to identify solutions Supporting APQP processes for new supplier components The Candidate To be successful in your application for this Senior Quality Engineer role you will need; Previous experience working as a Quality/Senior Quality Engineer within an engineering/manufacturing environment Someone practically minded - role will be 50% office based and the rest of the time problem solving with people on the shop floor. Significant problem solving experience Root cause analysis & 8D experience Ability to work alone and provide support at a Senior level The Benefits For this Senior Quality Engineer, the following benefits are on offer: £45,000 basic salary A nine day fortnight - the business works Monday - Thursday every other week.
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Maintenance Technician
£50400 - 50400 per year Paid overtime, 18% total pension contribution (6% employee / 12% employer), life assurance, private
Derby
Maintenance technician, £50320, Derby Shift Pattern: 3-shift rotation (Earlies, Lates, Nights / Days & Nights rotation) Package includes: Paid overtime, 18% total pension contribution (6% employee / 12% employer), life assurance, private healthcare, excellent company car scheme, 25 days holiday + 8 bank holidays with the opportunity to earn an additional 39 holiday hours, and more. Why join? World-class training – Gain multi-skilled development including PLC programming Outstanding culture – High employee engagement and long service across the team Cutting-edge technology & continuous improvement mindset Trust & empowerment from day one About the company Toyota, the world’s largest automotive manufacturer, is seeking a Maintenance Technician to join its prestigious Body Shop at the Burnaston plant in Derbyshire. Home of the iconic Toyota Corolla, this state-of-the-art facility has been a key part of the local community since the early 1990s and now employs over 2,000 people. As Toyota’s flagship European site, TMUK plays a vital role in global operations, contributing £3 billion annually to the wider Toyota group. The Burnaston site houses five manufacturing areas — Press, Body, Paint, Plastics and Assembly — each critical to vehicle production. Why Body Shop? If you’re passionate about robotics and automation, this is where precision meets innovation. The Body Shop carries out over 90% of the vehicle’s welding using advanced robotic systems. High-speed, high-accuracy robotic cells perform complex component attachment and structural welding, ensuring every Corolla meets Toyota’s world-class quality standards. This is an opportunity to work at the forefront of automotive manufacturing, maintaining cutting-edge automation in a fast-paced, highly technical environment. What does a day to day of a maintenance technician within the body department look like? As a maintenance technician you will be responsible for maintaining a variety of PLC controlled robotics. This includes the largest robot in the factory, Godzilla. Further responsibilities will include: - Reacting to breakdowns - Swapping components like for like. - Completing continuous improvement activity What do the body shop look for? As with all TMUKs departments, a mind set for Continuous improvement (Kaizen) and adopting a fix right first-time culture is essential. Toyota like their maintenance technicians to be comfortable working with a fast-paced environment and enjoy the buzz of a busy factory. - Strong multiskilled experience. - Experience with fluid power systems (Desirable) - Understanding of electrical safe practices - Understanding of robotic principles - Happy to work across a three-shift pattern, including night shift. - Flexibility to complete the occasional overtime shift. The body shop will consider maintenance technicians from any environment and background, but of course would love to speak to those with experience on robotic machinery. The Benefits You’ll be joining a company that genuinely invests in its people. Whether you want to deepen your technical skills or work your way into senior roles, you’ll be given responsibility, autonomy and access to structured development pathways. Interested in joining our client as a maintenance engineer? Press apply, call Ashton on 07814 905283, or send your CV to ashton.kenney@ata-recruitment.co.uk ATA Recruitment specialises in Manufacturing, Infrastructure, Civil, Transportation and Engineering recruitment across permanent and contract roles. For more opportunities like this, visit our website. ATA is committed to creating a diverse workforce and is an equal opportunities employer. We welcome applications from all suitably qualified persons regardless of age, disability, gender, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation
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WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY
"In the past we have struggled to recruit for critical roles in our engineering team and over time have worked with a number of agencies unsuccessfully. The team at ATA have been very different, they have tried to deeply understand our business, spending time on the shop floor, meeting managers and members of the team, which has enabled them to really understand our culture, the nature of the roles and the required skills.
This means they only provide candidates aligned to our needs. They provide data and advice enabling us to position ourselves better in the market and give us feedback on the experiences of the candidates we interview and hire supporting retention. They have really considered how they advertise and invest to do this well.
2023 has been our best year for recruitment. ATA Recruitment now genuinely feel like part of our team, not a supplier and we now work exclusively with them for technical recruitment."
Dan Jones, Toyota Motor Manufacturing UK
"IMKA continually return to using ATA because of the professional manner and results that are achieved. The correct calibre candidates are always shortlisted, removing hours of time from exploratory interviews and ensuring that the selection and recruitment process is efficient and sustainable with the candidates provided.
When there is an assignment, ATA Search conducts a full and concise review of the role, understanding what individual skills / traits / behaviours are needed to make recruitment as smooth and efficient as possible. With their knowledge of the culture and scope of our business, ATA Search then creates a shortlist of candidates which meet the criteria of the role and are ready to fit / work straight away into the organisation.
IMKA will continue to work directly with ATA Search for this professional, cost effective and dynamic recruitment process."
Operations Director, IMKA Automotive Ltd