Our vision is to create a safe and sustainable world

Ricardo plc is a global strategic, environmental, and engineering consulting company. With over 100 years of engineering excellence and employing close to 3,000 employees in more than 20 countries, we provide exceptional levels of expertise in delivering leading-edge and innovative cross-sector sustainable products and solutions. Every day, we enable our customers to solve the most complex and dynamic challenges to help achieve a safe and sustainable world.

The Role

We are looking for a Principal Safety Consultant to join our team. If you are aiming to progress in your career and embrace a leadership position, this is a great opportunity for you.  In this role, you will play an important role in leading safety engineering and assurance services to a range of rail engineering projects. Your expertise and insights will directly contribute to the enhancement of safety protocols, risk assessment methodologies, and overall project quality. This role not only offers you the chance to further your technical knowledge in rail safety but also to mentor and guide junior consultants, sharing your wealth of experience to foster their growth. It's a unique chance to exhibit your leadership qualities while expanding your skill set in a collaborative and innovative environment. Applicants with varying levels of experience in the listed capabilities are encouraged to apply.

Key Responsibilities

• Leading complex rail safety engineering and assurance services to engineering projects, applying methods and tools aligned with key standards such as EN50126, EN50129, IEC 61508, and/or CSM-RA.
• Leading the bidding, winning, and successful delivery of complexed commercially viable projects, collaborating with clients to understand their objectives and desired outcomes for each project.
• Contributing to a diverse range of exciting projects, including safety assurance management, safety approvals, and CSM work for major infrastructure projects such as the National Train Control Centre in Dublin, Crewe Hub remodelling, and East Coast Mainline.
• Providing support to contractors in completing CSM and approvals for station works.
• Leading in safety assurance for new rail products, including high-speed points systems, axle counters, and other signalling systems.
• Working on global projects spanning Australia, the US, Canada, Asia and the Middle East. You can contribute to these projects from the UK, without the necessity of travel.
• Demonstrating flexibility by effectively managing multiple activities and proactively balancing workload across different projects and customers.
• Leading interactive workshops with clients and stakeholders.

Key Competencies and Experience

• Experience in delivering safety engineering and assurance services to rail projects, utilising methods and tools aligned with standards such as EN50126, EN50129, IEC 61508, and/or CSM-RA.
• Background in risk management, systems engineering and/or safety engineering.
• Prior experience in major rail infrastructure projects is highly desirable, especially if gained within the UK or consultancy sector.
• Exceptional organisational skills, with the ability to manage multiple activities and proactively prioritise workload.
• Support business development efforts by writing proposals, developing client relationships, and engaging with industry stakeholders.
• Strong communication skills and the ability to work effectively in a team environment.
• If you have experience in cyber security, we’d be keen to hear from you and explore opportunities. This skill is not pertinent to this role.

Working here

You will be warmly welcomed into our workplace where every voice matters. We are diverse thinkers and doers, coming together to create a culture of inclusion. We will support you to find your place.

We will encourage you to use your passion and expertise to make a positive impact through the projects you work on.  Your knowledge and desire to bring about change will be invaluable in helping deliver innovative solutions that support communities across the globe in becoming safer and more sustainable.

Work life balance 

We offer flexible approaches to work, whether that is working from home, being in the office, or as a hybrid worker. We're happy to discuss flexible working arrangements. Wellbeing is at the core to our culture, allowing employees to flourish and to achieve their full potential. 

Benefits

We want you to know how much you are valued. Your remuneration and benefits package will reflect that. You will receive a range of benefits which include support for your physical and mental health. 

Our core benefits include 25 days' annual leave, plus 8 flexible bank holidays, a competitive company pension scheme, life assurance and professional subscriptions reimbursement. We also offer a wide range of flexible benefits to suit your lifestyle.

Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion statement

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer, we believe in each person's potential, and we'll help you reach yours. We have an ambitious diversity, equality, and inclusion approach as explained here. We value diversity; recognising that a more diverse workforce creates a richer and more varied working environment. Diversity also drives innovation, by allowing us to offer our clients the best consultancy service that we can. As part of our commitment to engage positively and pro-actively with all our employees and to ensure an inclusive culture, we are a recognised as a 'disability confident' employer.

Next steps

Once you have submitted your application a member of our Recruitment Team will be in touch. Please be aware that the timing can vary dependent on the volume of applications that we receive for each role and in some cases, we may start to review applications prior to the closing date.

Ricardo is a Disability confident employer please advise the recruitment team via recruit@ricardo.com if you require any adjustments to support you throughout the recruitment process.