Continuous Improvement Coach

Salary: £52,143 to £55,000 - (depending on experience)

Contract Type: 12 month Fixed Term Contract – Full time

Location: Gatwick – Hybrid

Visa Restrictions: This position does not offer visa sponsorship.

We are the UK's aviation and aerospace regulator and recognised as a world leader in its field. Our activities are diverse, enabling the aviation industry to meet the highest safety standards, and we pride ourselves on our ability to adapt to the constantly evolving aviation environment.

The Role

Working with the Head of Continuous Improvement to develop a sustainable improvement capability which embeds a culture of Continuous Improvement (CI) and Operational Excellence within the CAA.This will involve building capability and skills to deliver knowledge and support across the business.

The CI Coach will work with business areas to deliver improvements to service quality and efficiency in addition to improved risk management and customer experience. You will ensure that changes to working practices and processes are well managed and any impact to Service Delivery is clearly understood and agreed with stakeholders in line with the CAAs strategic goals. This will require a strong network of relationships across the organisation; influencing and driving change at Head of Department and at operational process level.

These objectives will be met by a team of internal Continuous Improvement (CI) Coaches who, in partnership with Portfolio Delivery colleagues, will provide improvement expertise and coaching to CAA operational managers and teams in Continuous Improvement tools and techniques and creating a foundation for sustainable improvement in the longer term.This will mean needing the ability to share skills and knowledge across the team and also have the passion to improve themselves.

Core Accountabilities

Promoting a culture of Continuous Improvement through coaching, training and mentoring managers and teams in the appropriate use of problem-solving tools and techniques with the aim of reducing costs and improving service and efficiency. This will be complete across;

Projects

• Leading continual improvement focused projects using a 5D approach supporting business teams in reaching and improving on its year on year performance targets across Quality, Cost and Delivery
• Improve operational processes to reduce internal waste, build in quality and enhance customer service. Reducing the burden associated with internal rework and complaints.
• Enable business driven projects to deliver optimised processes by identifying and where appropriate delivering “end to end” improvement opportunities particularly but not solely before digitisation/technology activity.
• Act as a CI SME, working closely with project teams to ensure that system changes and enhancements are developed using Continuous Improvement principles, with error proofing in place to prevent passing defects downstream.
• Working with management teams to coordinate, schedule, and resource necessary operational readiness activities ahead of any significant change initiative.

Service Design

• Ensure services address user needs by adopting a user-centered approach to design and improvement projects
• Design and refine service prototypes, testing them with real users to iterate and enhance
• Consider both short-term and long-term impacts of service design decisions, embedding quality and customer-centricity into change projects
• Create and maintain detailed service blueprints, covering both front-end and back-end processes involved in service delivery
• Document design decisions, user personas, journey maps, and other key artifacts for internal reference and communication

Relationships

• Develop close working relationships with Business teams to drive understanding of how the areas can work more effectively together and how shared processes can be improved, driving down error rates through the identification of root cause.
• Work with Portfolio Delivery colleagues to support Business Change activities at all levels (e.g. small scale change at a centre level or escalating large scale changes which impact business wide), through impact assessing the change and working actively with the business to implement the change with no adverse impact to the service.

Learning

• Facilitate/lead Continuous Improvement workshops, including as-is and to-be workshops developing new operating procedures, reviewing and improving existing quality procedures
• Research, explore and study the latest thinking in CI and OpEx to ensure we are bringing the CAA the latest thinking in this field.
• Contribute to, create and deliver CI training (including Operational Management training) for delivery to management and business teams

Strategy

• Contribute to the CI strategy for the CAA
• Support the CAA in building quality and customer centricity into its change projects

About You

Minimum essential requirements for the role:

• Lean Minimum 2a / Six Sigma minimum Greenbelt / Process Improvement / Continuous Improvement Coach / Service Design appropriate certification required.
• Can demonstrate an ability to conduct a methodical investigation, analysis and documentation of business needs, including defining the Voice of the Customer and customer journey to meet all or part of the CAA's stated business functions and processes and associated information.
• Strong Project Management skills. Management of diverse, cross-functional project teams
• Strong engagement, influencing and relationship management skills
• Self-starter, motivated and tenacity to see projects and programmes through to implementation
• Experience in leading people through change
• Ability to prioritise tasks with differing timescales
• Ability to communicate clearly and effectively
• Ability to work under pressure
• Ability to understand the needs and sensitivities of the business
• Collaborative approach to getting things done.
• To work with the minimum of supervision.

Desirable skills for the role:

• Good understanding of the broader aspects of major organisation restructuring – i.e. Communications, Stakeholder Management and Change Management.
• Sufficient seniority and credibility to advise business teams of ‘Subject Matter Experts’ (SME’s) on their projects and the ability to find ways of solving or pre-empting problems.
• Knowledge of how to use tools to diagnose, design and implement change interventions.
• Experience with RPA, AI and automation software and projects
• Experience of supporting process migration projects.
• Experience of working in a regulatory environment.
• Experience of working in the aviation industry.

Additional Information

For many appointments within the CAA, these roles require access to operationally sensitive infrastructure and/or Nationally Protected information. For these roles the post holders must undergo National Security Vetting and achieve the appropriate level of clearance.

CTC - To be vetted we will usually expect a reasonable period of residency in the UK so that meaningful checks can be undertaken. For this role this will need to be 3 years.

If you do not meet these requirements, we may not be able to accept your application.

For more information on CTC and SC clearance please visit - Vetting explained - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

The CAA values high ethical standards and personal integrity among employees. If invited for interview you will be asked to complete a declaration of interest.

Relocation & Property

The CAA will be relocating from Aviation House (Our Gatwick Office) to new premises in a few years’ time. Our move is driven by strategic, operational and environmental considerations.

We will be moving to a new local home, up to a 15-mile radius of Aviation House, to minimise disruption for our valued colleagues and customers.

We are now working with colleagues and visitors to understand what we need in our new office, before we start our property search. We will sell Aviation House and land, vacate the site and move to new premises, but we do not expect to move before 2028

Inclusivity

We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer and celebrate our diversity ensuring all are backgrounds included here at the CAA. As a member of the Disability Confident scheme, applicants who meet the minimum criteria for a role with us will be guaranteed an interview.

Our Benefits

We offer a range of excellent benefits such as:

• Flexible & hybrid working arrangements available
• 28 days annual leave + public holidays (additional 5 days leave purchase scheme)
• Generous pension scheme (Up to 12% employer contribution)
• Wellbeing Room at Gatwick
• Mental Health and Suicide First Aiders
• Employee Assistance Programme, talking therapies and neurodiversity support via Occupational Health & access to Headspace for colleagues and 5 dependents
• Free onsite gym at Gatwick or discounted gym membership for London
• EV charging points
• Employee Development courses internally and via Skillsoft

Our Values

Do The Right Thing, Never Stop Learning, Build Collaborative Relationships, Respect Everyone – For more information please Click Here

Closing Date: Wednesday 10th September 2025

Interview Date: w/c Monday 22nd & 29th September 2025

We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if we receive sufficient applications for the role. Therefore, if you are interested, please submit your application as early as possible.

No recruitment agencies please.