Senior Structural Engineer | Technical Excellence Group

We are seeking an experienced Structural Engineer to join our Technical Excellence Group in a specialist, non-project-delivery capacity. This is a pivotal role within the practice, focused on safeguarding engineering quality, elevating technical standards, and shaping the next generation of structural engineers across the organisation. You will be part of a team that acts as an independent, senior technical authority, providing rigorous scrutiny of project outputs.

This is an excellent opportunity for a highly experienced engineer who has "been there and done it" on live projects and now wishes to apply that depth of knowledge to a broader, firm-wide technical role, with genuine influence over design quality, innovation, and the development of people at all levels.

Key Responsibilities

1. Technical Review & Assurance

• • Conduct in-depth, independent reviews of calculation packages, design philosophies, and structural reports across a range of project types, sectors, and stages (from concept to completion on site).
  • Scrutinise key design assumptions, load paths, code compliance, and robustness of structural solutions.
  • Provide constructive, clearly documented feedback to project teams, identifying both risks and opportunities for improvement.
  • Act as a technical escalation point for complex or contentious design issues referred by project teams.
  • Support bid and tender reviews where unusual, novel, or high-risk structural solutions are proposed, offering an independent sense-check prior to submission to clients.
  • Offer an internal "second opinion" service for designers facing unusual or complex technical challenges; a trusted, impartial sounding board sitting outside the normal project hierarchy, encouraging engineers to seek advice without fear of judgement.
  • Support the business's quality assurance framework, helping to identify trends and recurring issues across projects.

2. Standards, Governance & Knowledge Management

• • Maintain awareness of changes to codes of practice, legislation and industry guidance, ensuring timely dissemination across the business.
  • Contribute to the development and maintenance of the company's technical governance framework, including peer review protocols and risk categorisation of projects.
  • Support incident/near-miss investigations from a technical perspective, feeding lessons learned back into training and guidance material.
  • Promote a positive, open culture around raising technical concerns and learning from mistakes.

3. Digital Design & Computational Oversight

• • Work closely with the Computational Design Team to provide experienced structural input on the development, validation, and governance of digital design tools, including BIM workflows, parametric design, and AI-assisted design checking.
  • Ensure robust verification and sense-checking protocols for computational outputs, ensuring automation and digital tools enhance (rather than replace) sound engineering judgement.
  • Support the safe, consistent adoption of new digital tools across project teams, identifying training needs as these technologies evolve.

4. Research & Innovation

• • Act as a technical liaison with external university partners, supporting collaborative research projects relevant to structural engineering practice.
  • Monitor emerging research, materials, and methodologies, assessing their practical application within the business.
  • Help translate academic research into practical guidance, design tools, or updated internal standards.
  • Represent the company on relevant external industry panels and committees (e.g. IStructE technical committees, SCOSS, CROSS reporting), maintaining the firm's visibility and influence in shaping industry-wide best practice.
  • Bring back insights from external research, panels, and industry bodies to inform internal standards and training.

5. Training & Technical Development

• • Take a holistic view of technical training needs across the organisation.
  • Design and deliver technical training sessions, workshops, and lunchtime learning sessions on structural design topics, lessons learned, and emerging best practice.
  • Develop structured mentoring pathways for engineers at all stages of their career, including informal technical mentoring of senior engineers and associates.
  • Contribute to the creation and maintenance of internal design guides, standard details, templates, and calculation checklists.
  • Support the development of competency frameworks aligned with institution requirements (e.g. IStructE/ICE Chartership).
  • Identify skills gaps across the business and assist in developing internal training programmes.

Ideal Candidate

Essential

• • Chartered Structural Engineer (IStructE, ICE, or equivalent).
  • Demonstrable experience across a broad range of structural materials, forms, and sectors.
  • Strong track record of complex technical design on challenging projects.
  • Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to explain complex technical issues clearly and diplomatically to engineers at all levels, including senior/director-level staff.
  • A genuine passion for mentoring, training, and developing others.
  • High attention to detail, with a methodical, questioning approach to technical review.
  • Comfortable providing robust, independent challenge in a constructive and collaborative manner.

Desirable

• • Experience engaging with academic/research institutions.
  • Previous involvement in technical panels or industry working groups.
  • Experience developing internal training programmes or technical guidance documents.
  • Familiarity with digital design tools (BIM, parametric design, computational workflows) and an interest in their safe, effective adoption.
  • Published technical papers, articles, or conference presentations.