Principal Fire Engineer — Hybrid, Global Projects Lead

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

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.