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Maritime Principal Engineer

On-site in Bristol·Full-time·Added today (last checked 30 Oct)

Ministry of Defence (MOD)

87 open roles

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Our summary

Salary
£93,600 - £104,000 a year

About £5,400 - £5,840 a month after tax.

Work mode
On-site, Bristol
Contract
Full-time
Experience
Senior level
Closing date
Apply by Monday 23 November
Pension
28.97% employer pension

Skills

Requirements

What we're looking for

To be successful with your application, you'll need to be able to demonstrate the following 6 essential criteria (please refer to these in your supporting statement):

  • Significant senior-level experience in strategic capability planning, acquisition, sustainment, logistics and supply chain management within Defence or another complex, safety-critical, capital-intensive environment.
  • Demonstrable experience of strategic safety leadership, including making safety decisions within a regulated environment, exercising Senior Safety Responsible accountability (or equivalent) in the Maritime environment, and embedding effective safety management practices across complex programmes or systems.
  • Demonstrable expertise in risk management, including the identification, assessment, mitigation and governance of strategic, operational and safety risks.
  • Proven track record of developing and delivering commercial strategies, managing complex supplier relationships, and operating across a range of commercial and contracting models.
  • Strong experience of engaging and influencing senior stakeholders, building effective partnerships, providing constructive challenge, and working collaboratively across organisational and international boundaries.
  • A visible leader, with a proactive commitment to diversity and inclusion and demonstrable experience of creating and maintaining a psychologically safe and inclusive environment while driving positive outcomes.

Education & certifications

  • Chartered Engineer

Pay & benefits

What you'll get

£93,600 - £104,000

A Civil Service Pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%

Alongside your salary of £93,600, Ministry of Defence contributes £27,115 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides (opens in a new window).

  • Learning and development tailored to your role
  • An environment with flexible working options
  • A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
  • A Civil Service pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%

The role

Thank you for your interest in the Maritime Principal Engineer role at the National Armaments Directorate Group

This is a distinct and highly influential engineering leadership role at the forefront of Defence maritime capability, offering the opportunity to shape the safety, sustainability and future effectiveness of some of the UK's most critical naval systems and programmes.

As the Maritime Principal Engineer role, you will play a pivotal role in ensuring that maritime equipment, systems and services are safe, resilient and capable of delivering operational advantage to the UK Armed Forces. The role sits within one of the largest and most diverse project delivery organisations in government, overseeing engineering activity that supports major naval programmes, in-service platforms and future maritime technologies. You will be responsible for setting engineering standards, driving continuous improvement and fostering a strong safety culture.

As a member of the Senior Leadership Group, you will provide strategic direction to a multidisciplinary workforce, working across multiple locations in the UK. You will engage regularly with senior military leaders, government officials, regulators, industry executives and international partners to ensure the successful delivery and sustainment of vital Defence capabilities.

We are seeking an exceptional leader with a strong track record of delivering complex programmes, operating in highly regulated environments, and leading through influence at the most senior levels. If you are motivated by challenge, committed to public service, and passionate about delivering outcomes that strengthen Defence and national security, we look forward to hearing from you.

What you'll do

The Principal Engineer in Maritime has the following areas of responsibility:

  • Provide strategic engineering leadership across a complex maritime portfolio, ensuring the delivery and sustainment of safe, effective and operationally critical military capability.
  • Lead safety and environmental governance and independent assurance, setting the standards and assurance frameworks that ensure equipment and systems are safe, compliant and fit for purpose throughout their lifecycle.
  • Act as the senior engineering authority, providing expert advice to senior leaders and exercising independent judgement to challenge, halt or reshape activities where risk is unacceptable.
  • Shape the future of maritime capability, influencing long-term defence planning, investment decisions and industrial strategy through expert engineering insight.
  • Drive the delivery of engineering programmes and services, balancing priorities, resources and risk to maximise operational outcomes and value for Defence.
  • Ensure robust systems engineering and technical assurance, embedding best practice to deliver resilient, integrated and mission-ready capabilities.
  • Strengthen supply chain resilience and industrial partnerships, ensuring critical skills, expertise, equipment and support remain available to meet current and future needs.
  • Build and lead strategic relationships with regulators, industry partners and senior stakeholders, driving continuous improvement, innovation and engineering excellence across the defence enterprise.
  • Provide centralised decision making on engineering resourcing priorities for the Maritime Environment.

How you'll work

Permanent

Full-time

This role has a minimum assignment duration of 4 years. An assignment duration is the period of time a Senior Civil Servant is expected to remain in the same post to enable them to deliver on the agreed key business outcomes. The assignment duration also supports your career through building your depth of expertise.

As part of accepting this role you will be agreeing to the expected assignment duration set out above. This will not result in a contractual change to your terms and conditions. Please note this is an expectation only, it is not something which is written into your terms and conditions or indeed which the employing organisation or you are bound by. It will depend on your personal circumstances at a particular time and business needs, for example, would not preclude any absence like family friendly leave. It is nonetheless an important expectation, which is why we ask you to confirm you agree to the assignment duration set out above.

NAD Group Offices, Bristol, Abbey Wood, BS34 8JH

Apply before

Apply before 11:55 pm on Monday 23rd November 2026

Reference number

488499

Job grade

SCS Pay Band 1

Type of role

Engineering
Senior leadership

Number of jobs available

1

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a standard (or equivalent) criminal record check.

Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window).

See our vetting charter (opens in a new window).

People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

Open to UK nationals only.

Apply and further information

This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.

Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

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Hiring process

This is an external competition and we welcome applications from candidates in both the public or private sector. To apply for this post, you will need to submit the following documents, via the following link (Apply here) by 23:55 on 23 November 2026.

  • A CV setting out your career history, with key responsibilities and achievements. Please ensure you have provided reasons for any gaps.
  • A Supporting Statement of no more than 1200 words (font Arial, size 11), outlining how you consider your personal skills, leadership attributes, qualities and experience match the essential criteria above. Applications that exceed the word limit will not be considered. For assistance with Supporting Statements or if you experience any technical issues with submitting your application, please do reach out to the recruitment team prior to the closing deadline. Late submissions will not be considered.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

About Ministry of Defence (MOD)

Industry
Government Administration

In their own words

About the company & team

MOD - National Armaments Directorate

  • Name : NAD Group SCS Talent Acquisition Team
  • Email : DESHR-SCSRecruitment@mod.gov.uk

Additional information

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).

The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.

The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).

In the unlikely event that you feel that your application has not been treated in accordance with the Commission's Recruitment Principles and you wish to make a complaint you should, in the first instance, contact DESHR-WSC-PMOCOMPLAINTS@mod.gov.uk If you are not satisfied with the response you receive from the department you can contact the Office of the Civil
Service Commissioners at info@csc.gov.uk

All open roles at Ministry of Defence (MOD)

Location

Ministry of Defence (MOD) · BS34 8JH

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