Principal Fire Engineer

Overview

As Lead Fire Safety Engineer, you will act as the expert for fire safety and risk management across National Grid Electricity Transmission assets. You’ll develop and enforce fire safety strategies, policies, and compliance across England and Wales, guiding projects and operations. You’ll provide senior technical input on fire design and risk, support design assurance, and help shape fire risk management for both new builds and legacy infrastructure. This role offers impact at scale within a safety‑critical environment and a chance to drive continuous improvement and cross‑functional collaboration.

Pay / Benefits

• Competitive salary 55,000–78,000
• Bonus based on personal and company performance
• Contributory pension with employer match up to 12%
• Flexible benefits like share incentive plan
• Salary sacrifice car and technology schemes
• Employee assistance lines and matched charity giving

Responsibilities

• Serve as subject matter expert for fire safety and risk across NGET HV substations and infrastructure
• Develop, review, and implement fire strategies, policies, and compliance reviews
• Own technical policy and specifications for fire risk management
• Advise projects on fire design and regulatory compliance
• Support design assurance activities and review of fire strategy documents and evidence
• Understand and manage fire risk in legacy estate and third‑party activities
• Lead asset management for fire safety systems and maintenance requirements
• Interpret and challenge fire and smoke modelling outputs (CFD, zone models)
• Promote consistent fire risk outputs across sites and projects
• Contribute to resilience, emergency planning, and long‑term asset strategy
• Build relationships with internal teams, partners, and external stakeholders
• Communicate changes in regulation and industry practice; represent National Grid in external groups
• Mentor colleagues to improve fire safety capability and decision‑making

Key requirements

• Degree in engineering, science, or fire safety (ideally MSc in Fire Engineering)
• Chartered Engineer status or active progress toward chartership
• Strong knowledge of fire engineering, risk management, and relevant national frameworks
• Experience on building and infrastructure projects in safety‑critical settings
• Knowledge of UK fire safety regulations, Building Regulations, standards and codes of practice
• Experience reviewing fire strategies, risk assessments, compliance evidence and design submissions
• Familiarity with fire and smoke modelling tools (CFD, zone models, evacuation models)
• Experience with DSEAR assessments and/or fire incident investigations (beneficial)
• Clear communication skills, both written and verbal; stakeholder management
• Ability to work under challenging deadlines and manage competing priorities
• Proactive, collaborative, and mentoring mindset

• Stakeholder management
• Clear communicator
• Influencing without authority
• Fire engineering and fire risk management
• Fire design and performance-based engineering
• Regulatory compliance and Building Regulations knowledge

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