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Base pay range
Health & Safety Manager
Full-time Role
Reporting to: Chief Executive Officer
Location: On-site (mainly Cambridge area, with flexible travel across UK and potentially international sites)
The company is a high-technology defence startup. As our Health & Safety Manager, you’ll own the design, implementation and leadership of all health, safety and environmental processes across the business. You’ll bring foresight to our operations, ensuring compliance with UK, EU and international standards while shaping a culture of health & safety.
This role is about more than compliance: you’ll build systems that are clear, practical, and easy to follow – processes that encourage people to take ownership rather than seeing H&S as a tick-boxing exercise. By doing so, you’ll make safety an enabler of innovation, resilience and mission success.
Key responsibilities:
- Strategy and leadership: Define and lead the company’s health, safety and environmental strategy across all sites and projects. Serve as the authority on HSE matters, advising the CEO, the Board, senior leadership, and engineering teams. Early engagement on upcoming projects and expansions to have H&S in place from the start to enable the business to progress rapidly and efficiently.
- Risk management & compliance: Drive hazard identification, risk assessments, and safe systems of work in high-hazard environments. Ensure full compliance with UK, EU, and aerospace/defence-specific regulations, including ATEX.
- Audits, inspections & investigations: Oversee site audits, inspections, and incident investigations. Implement corrective actions and embed continuous improvement across the organisation.
- Culture & training: Champion health & safety as a driver of operational resilience and excellence. Build and deliver training, awareness, and engagement programmes that empower employees to take ownership of safety, whilst making efficient use of limited time in a fast-moving startup environment. Position H&S as a partner to innovation and execution at speed, ensuring our competitive advantage is enhanced.
- Processes & simplicity: Design workflows and processes that are straightforward, practical and scalable across multiple locations. Ensure safety requirements are understood, adopted and embedded in daily work.
- Stakeholder engagement: Represent the business with regulators, customers, and industry bodies on HSE matters. Build credibility and trust through transparency and robust systems.
- Scaling the function: Grow and lead the function as we expand across multiple geographies and sites.
What We’re Looking For:
- Ideally 10+ years H&S experience, ideally within aerospace, defence engineering, or other high- hazard and highly regulated industries.
- Proven leadership experience building and scaling HSE frameworks in complex or multi-site organisations.
- Ability to work rapidly and proactively with operations and engineering teams to understand relevant work streams and ensure prevention processes are in place before issues arise.
- Strong working knowledge of UK and EU HSE legislation and regulatory requirements.
- Demonstrated success in risk management, incident investigation, and stakeholder engagement.
- Excellent communicator with the ability to simplify complexity and design processes people actually want to use.
- NEBOSH National Diploma (or equivalent) required
- Chartered Membership of IOSH (CMIOSH)
- Bonus: ATEX certification or experience working with explosive/flammable environments.
- Experience in fast-growing mission-driven organisations.
What we offer
- Competitive salary package
- Benefits: Private Medical Insurance incl. some dental and optical coverage for you and child and/or spouse dependant, Cycle to Work Scheme, Option Share Scheme
- Opportunity to grow and accelerate career progression in line with rapid company growth
Why now?
The business is scaling rapidly – securing contracts, expanding our engineering footprint, and hiring across disciplines. As our first senior HSE leader, you’ll shape the systems, culture, and safeguards that will protect out people and mission at this critical stage. You’ll play a direct role in ensuring safety is never overlooked, but instead forms a strong foundation for resilience, innovation, and growth.
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