Systems Safety Lead

As a Systems Safety Lead, you will steer a team of safety engineers and shape safety engineering practices across complex maritime defence programmes. You’ll influence design decisions and embed product safety across the engineering lifecycle, partnering with systems and design teams. You will apply established safety methodologies to identify hazards, assess risks and drive risk-reduction solutions. This role combines technical leadership with continuous improvement to elevate safety as a core engineering discipline.

• Lead, mentor and develop a team of safety engineers and guide their technical growth
• Provide technical direction across multiple projects ensuring safety activities meet programme requirements
• Oversee hazard analyses, safety cases and related documentation
• Apply engineering judgement to assess hazards and determine risk-reduction measures
• Collaborate with design and systems engineering teams to integrate safety into product design and lifecycle
• Influence technical decisions to treat safety as a fundamental engineering requirement
• Manage competing priorities, coordinating workloads and balancing technical quality with delivery
• Identify opportunities to improve safety processes and ways of working
• Support the team in adopting evolving engineering practices and digital technologies
• Promote a collaborative environment with knowledge sharing and sound decision-making

• Strong combination of technical safety engineering knowledge and leadership capability
• Experience in safety engineering within Defence, aerospace, maritime or safety-critical industries
• Experience applying safety engineering principles to equipment and systems design
• Proven ability to lead, mentor or develop engineers across multiple projects
• Knowledge of hazard analysis, fault tree analysis, safety case development and supporting evidence
• Understanding of how safety integrates with systems development and certification
• Ability to drive continuous improvement and challenge established approaches
• Strong communication and stakeholder management skills
• Interest in coaching others and building a collaborative team
• A relevant engineering degree or equivalent professional experience (implied)

• leadership
• stakeholder management
• communication
• safety engineering principles
• hazard analysis
• failure analysis