About this opportunity
Make your mark for patients
We are looking for a Projects Automation Lead – Engineering who is strategic, collaborative, and delivery‑oriented to join our team based at our UCB campus in Braine‑l’Alleud, Belgium.
About the role
You are going to define and drive UCB’s automation vision across engineering projects and manufacturing sites. You will translate strategic ambitions into a clear multi‑year automation roadmap and ensure its execution through a dedicated automation team. Combining leadership and hands‑on accountability, you will ensure automation solutions are compliant, standardized where needed, and consistently deployed to support long‑term site performance, digitalization, and sustainability.
Who you will work with
You will work closely with engineering project managers, site manufacturing, utilities and facilities teams. You will collaborate with system integrators and suppliers while animating a cross‑site automation network to share best practices, standards, and reusable solutions.
What you will do
You will define and maintain the automation vision, strategy, and multi‑year roadmap for engineering projects and sites.
You will be responsible for building, leading, and developing a central or federated automation team.
You will act as automation discipline owner across capital projects, from concept to handover.
You will ensure automation packages, standards, specifications, and architectures are fit‑for‑purpose and compliant.
You will govern automation initiatives, balancing project delivery with long‑term standardization and sustainability.
You will act as the single point of accountability for automation with internal and external stakeholders.
Interested? For this role, we are looking for the following education, experience, and skills
Master’s degree in Engineering (Automation, Electrical, Industrial, Chemical, or similar).
10+ years of experience in industrial automation within regulated manufacturing environments.
Proven experience leading automation teams or disciplines within capital projects.
Strong understanding of automation systems, validation principles, and project lifecycles.
Ability to translate strategy into execution with a pragmatic, delivery‑focused mindset.
Clear and impactful communication skills, translating complex technical topics for diverse audiences.
Excellent stakeholder management and matrix leadership skills.
Fluent in French and English + willing to travel to UK, Switzerland, Japan (20% of the time).
Internal applicants should be in their current job for at least 12 months, must meet performance standards and are not on formal corrective/disciplinary process (PIP), warning, final warning, or compliance warning letters within the last 12 months. Please inform your Manager or your Talent Partner before applying to any internal job opportunities.
At UCB, we’ve embraced a hybrid-first approach to work, bringing teams together in local hubs to foster collaborative curiosity. Unless expressly stated in the description, this role is hybrid with 40% of your time spent in the office, irrespective of your current contractual agreement. Should your current working arrangements differ, please contact your Talent Partner to discuss, before submitting your application.
UCB is an equal opportunity employer. All employment decisions will be made without regard to any characteristic protected by applicable laws.
Should you require any adjustments to our process to assist you in demonstrating your strengths and capabilities contact us on EMEA-Reasonable_Accommodation@ucb.com . Please note should your enquiry not relate to adjustments; we will not be able to support you through this channel.
Requisition ID: 93057
Recruiter: Flore Bourlet
Hiring Manager: François Delaunoit
Talent Partner: Katrien Jacobs
Job Level: MM I
Please consult HRAnswers for more information on job levels.
Job details
How this role compares
Computed from every other active Manufacturing & CMC role in our database, not just this employer's listings.
We currently track 1527 comparable Manufacturing & CMC roles across 125 biopharma companies.
Salary context
456 of 1527 peers report a salary range (USD, annualized)
Peers share this role's job function. This posting doesn't list a seniority level, so peers aren't narrowed by seniority either -- the range below may span more levels than usual.
Where these roles are based
Top locations among the 1527 comparable roles
+ 38 more countries
Seniority mix
705 of 1527 peers have a known seniority level
Therapeutic area mix
7 of 1527 peers have a known therapeutic area; the rest are genuinely unlabeled, not hidden
Similar opportunities
The closest matches from our peer group, ranked by how similar they are, not how well you'd qualify for them -- treat this as market context, not a guaranteed shortlist; a weak match is labeled as one below.
How we calculate "similar"
No black box, no LLM guesswork: a deterministic score built from four normalized attributes. Here's this role's own peer group at different match levels, so you can see the mechanism, not just the result.
Every comparison starts from the same 100-point budget: 25 for working in the same function, 40 for the same therapeutic area, 20 for the same or adjacent seniority, 15 for the same country. A dimension we can't confirm on both sides contributes nothing, never a guess, never a free pass.
0 points, never a partial guess. A role we know almost nothing about beyond its function bottoms out at 25%; it never inflates to 100% just because there's little to compare against. Seniority uses a defined ladder (Associate → Manager → Associate Director → Senior → Principal → Director → Senior Director → Executive/VP) so "Director" and "Senior Director" count as adjacent, but "Director" and "Executive/VP" do not.