Principal Fire Engineer

Burohappold Engineering; Leeds; Hybrid; GBP 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid working arrangements

Life assurance

Income protection

Private medical insurance

25 days holiday

Generous company pension

Flexible benefits

Parental leave policies

Learning and development programme

Professional body memberships

Job summary

Buro Happold Engineering seeks a Principal Fire Engineer to lead complex fire and life safety design across UK projects. This hybrid role supports collaboration with multiple offices and international teams, delivering high-profile stadiums, facilities and renewals.

You will mentor junior engineers, liaise with clients, and ensure designs meet prescriptive and performance-based approvals while guiding the project from concept through delivery.

Qualifications

• Lead fire engineering on UK-based projects.
• Experience delivering fire and life safety designs.
• Ability to gain agreement for prescriptive and performance-based designs.

Responsibilities

• Lead / project manage fire engineering projects.
• Inform and support the building design aspirations, functionality and architectural form throughout the design process.
• Take ownership for client care and general consultancy on projects.
• Take responsibility for the financial performance of projects, including invoicing and financial monitoring of projects.
• Represent Buro Happold Fire Engineering at design team meetings, both internal and externally.
• Build knowledge to be able to identify and specify appropriate fixed fire protection systems, i.e. automatic fire detection and/or suppression to support fire engineering design solutions.
• Carry out and review fire engineering calculations including smoke modelling and evacuation analysis from simple hand calculations to complex 3D computational modelling (previous CFD experience is welcome but not essential).
• Guide, mentor and technically review the work of Senior and junior team members, supporting skills development and consistent delivery excellence.
• Proactively contribute to innovation, tool development and improvement of methods, supporting the evolution of the Fire Engineer discipline.

Skills

Lead fire engineer

Mentoring juniors

Client liaison

Education

Higher education qualification in engineering or fire safety

Tools

CFD modelling

Job description

Thrive on openness, respect and collaboration? Good. Us too. Join as our new Principal Fire Engineer. This is a hybrid role and can be based in either our Edinburgh, Manchester, Bath, Leeds, or London office.Your next roleAs a fire engineering team, we pride ourselves on our global reach. With teams located in the UK, Dubai and Riyadh, we bring international expertise to every project. Our team has a breadth of experience across all sectors, new builds and refurbishments and our technical services and expert witness work embeds a progressive learning culture, enabling us to be at the forefront of industry best practice. In-house computational expertise combined with on point design communication supports the full design service we offer and enables a closer collaboration with architects.In this role you will work on complex, pinnacle projects across a range of sectors - including iconic sports stadiums and entertainment venues, mega-projects in the Middle East, advanced manufacturing
and scientific research facilities, and so much more. You'll be joining a diverse, inclusive and technically brilliant group of engineers (around 40-strong), and collaborate with a breadth of specialisms across our multidisciplinary practice. We can offer an outstanding platform for career development, exposing you to some of the most technically challenging projects in the industry which truly push boundaries, and giving your opportunities to take on broader, client-facing and advisory responsibility, working directly with end-user clients.

Key Duties

• Lead / project manage fire engineering projects.
• Inform and support the building design aspirations, functionality and architectural form throughout the design process.
• Take ownership for client care and general consultancy on projects.
• Take responsibility for the financial performance of projects, including invoicing and financial monitoring of projects.
• Represent Buro Happold Fire Engineering at design team meetings, both internal and externally.
• Build knowledge to be able to identify and specify appropriate fixed fire protection systems, i.e. automatic fire detection and/or suppression to support fire engineering design solutions.
• Carry out and review fire engineering calculations including smoke modelling and evacuation analysis from simple hand calculations to complex 3D computational modelling (previous CFD experience is welcome but not essential).
• Guide, mentor and technically review the work of Senior and junior team members, supporting skills development and consistent delivery excellence.
• Proactively contribute to innovation, tool development and improvement of methods, supporting the evolution of the Fire Engineer discipline.

Your skills & experience:

• Experience as a lead fire engineer on projects.
• Higher education qualification in engineering or in a fire safety related subject.
• Demonstrable professional experience in delivering fire and life safety designs and fire engineered solutions for UK-based projects.
• Track record of gaining agreement for prescriptive and performance-based design solutions from approving authorities.
• Experience mentoring and developing more junior engineers.

What we offer you:

• Hybrid working arrangements.
• Attractive salary and benefits package including life assurance and income protection.
• Private medical insurance.
• Holiday entitlement of 25 days.
• flexible holiday arrangements, and your birthday off.
• Generous company pension scheme.
• Flexible benefits including cycle scheme, dental insurance, optical cover, travel insurance, season ticket loans, and corporate discounts.
• Enhanced parental leave policies.
• 3pm finish on the last Friday of the month.
• A strong commitment to your continuous development.
• Whatever stage in your career, we have a learning and development programme that will enable and empower you.
• Entitlement to two memberships to professional bodies or subscriptions.
• A commitment to your wellbeing through a comprehensive employee assistance