Principal Technical Safety and PRAM Consultant

ARCADIS; Bristol; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

Arcadis is seeking a Principal Safety and Reliability Engineering Consultant in Bristol to lead safety, risk and RAM activities across complex projects. You will develop safety arguments, review deliverables, and mentor junior consultants while ensuring compliance with standards and client expectations.

The role offers opportunities to apply RAM modelling, hazard analysis and safety case development within a collaborative, global practice focused on safe, reliable and resilient assets across

Qualifications

• Broad experience in safety risk and reliability engineering in safety‑critical industries.
• Experience creating safety cases, hazard reports and RAM plans.

Responsibilities

• Act as technical lead for safety, reliability and risk assurance on complex projects.
• Review and quality assure reports, safety cases, RAM documentation and client deliverables.
• Develop safety arguments to support design changes and operational decisions.
• Chair HAZID/HAZOP and other structured risk workshops.
• Lead RAM analyses and reliability documentation across asset lifecycles.
• Mentor junior consultants and contribute to the team’s capability growth.

Skills

Systems safety

Reliability engineering

Hazard analysis

FMECA

HAZID/HAZOP

RAM modeling

Safety cases

DSEAR knowledge

Client communication

Education

Bachelor’s degree in engineering or numerate discipline

Tools

Isograph Reliability Workbench

Job description

Arcadis is the world's leading company delivering sustainable design, engineering, and consultancy solutions for natural and built assets.

We are more than 34,000 people, in over 30 countries, dedicated to improving quality of life. Everyone has an important role to play. With the power of many curious minds, together we can solve the world’s most complex challenges and deliver more impact together.

Role description:

Join our Safety Risk Management (SRM) team as a Principal Safety and Reliability Engineering Consultant, where you will provide technical leadership across complex, safety-critical and mission-critical projects. You will help clients understand, manage and reduce safety and reliability risks across the full asset lifecycle, applying structured safety assurance, RAM, risk assessment and systems engineering techniques.

We have been applying our expertise to projects around the world for over a century. Join us and you will be part of a forward-looking, collaborative team that draws on diverse technical strengths to help ensure tomorrow’s journeys, assets and systems are safe, reliable and resilient. While many of our projects are in the railway and transportation sector, you will also have opportunities to apply your expertise across energy, water, industrial, manufacturing and other infrastructure environments.

In this role, you will act as a trusted technical advisor to clients, lead multidisciplinary safety and reliability activities, support work-winning and project delivery, and help develop the capability of junior consultants within a growing specialist team.

Role accountabilities:

Technical leadership and assurance

• Acting as technical lead for safety, reliability and risk assurance activities on complex and mission‑critical projects.
• Providing technical review and quality assurance of project outputs, including reports, specifications, safety cases, RAM documentation and other client deliverables.
• Developing engineering safety arguments and justifications to support design development, design change and operational decision‑making.
• Ensuring project outputs meet client expectations, Arcadis’ requirements, relevant legislation, national standards and recognised codes of practice.

Safety and risk assessment

• Chairing and facilitating Hazard Identification (HAZID), Hazard and Operability (HAZOP) and other structured risk assessment workshops.
• Developing, managing and maintaining project hazard records, hazard logs and associated close‑out evidence.
• Leading and managing others in the completion of DSEAR and Hazardous Area Classification studies.
• Undertaking Failure Modes, Effects and Criticality Analysis (FMECA), Bow‑Tie assessments, Fault Tree Analysis and Event Tree Analysis.
• Performing Quantitative Risk Analysis (QRA), consequence analysis and dispersion modelling where required.

Reliability, availability and maintainability

• Developing RAM plans, RAM analyses and reliability assurance documentation to support project and asset lifecycle objectives.
• Undertaking reliability assessments, including the development and application of Reliability Block Diagrams and associated reliability models.
• Supporting clients in identifying reliability risks, performance constraints and opportunities to improve asset availability and maintainability.

Client, commercial and team development

• Building trusted relationships with clients, project teams and stakeholders through clear technical advice and high‑quality delivery.
• Supporting bids, proposals, fee estimates and work‑winning activities for safety, risk and reliability services.
• Coaching and mentoring junior consultants, reviewing their work and contributing to the continued development of the team’s technical capability.

Qualifications & Experience:

Essential

• Bachelor’s degree, or higher, in engineering, science, mathematics or another relevant numerate discipline.
• Significant experience in a system safety, reliability, risk engineering or safety assurance role within a safety‑critical or mission‑critical industry, such as rail, energy, water, aviation, nuclear, automotive, aerospace, defence or process industries.
• Strong working knowledge of safety risk assessment, reliability assessment and engineering safety management techniques.
• Experience developing safety risk and reliability models using techniques such as Reliability Block Diagrams, Fault Trees and Event Trees.
• Experience chairing or contributing to HAZID, HAZOP or similar structured risk workshops.
• Experience developing safety cases, hazard reports, system definitions, safety plans, RAM plans or other safety and reliability assurance documentation.
• Knowledge of relevant standards, legislation and good practice, which may include the Common Safety Method (CSM), Railways and Other Guided Transport Systems (Safety) Regulations 2006 (ROGS), and BS EN 50126, BS EN 50128 and BS EN 50129.
• Working knowledge of the DSEAR Approved Code of Practice.
• A proactive, solution‑oriented approach, with the ability to apply experience, judgement and technical knowledge to bespoke risk assessment and assurance challenges.
• Strong communication skills, with the ability to explain complex technical issues clearly to clients, project teams and stakeholders.

Desirable

• Experience working within the water supply, renewable energy or wider infrastructure sectors.
• Experience in delivering full compliance with CSM-REA for several Rail infrastructure projects across the full life cycle (including meeting the requirements from the independent assessor)
• Experience working across more than one mission‑critical industry, such as rail, energy, water, process industry, oil and gas, aerospace or defence.
• Experience in applying Hazardous Area Classification standards and guidance (e.g. EI15 and IEC60079)
• Ability to read electrical schematic block diagrams and engineering drawings.
• Experience using Isograph Reliability Workbench or similar safety, reliability or risk modelling software.
• Experience delivering consequence analysis and/or dispersion modelling.

Why Arcadis?

We can only achieve our goals when everyone is empowered to be their best. We believe everyone's contribution matters. It’s why we are pioneering a skills‑based approach, where you can harness your unique experience and expertise to carve your career path and maximise the impact we can make together.

You’ll do meaningful work, and no matter what role, you’ll be helping to deliver sustainable solutions for a more prosperous planet. Make your mark, on your career, your colleagues, your clients, your life and the world around you.

Together, we can create a lasting legacy.

Join Arcadis. Create a Legacy.

Our Commitment to Equality, Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging

We want you to be able to bring your best self to work every day which is why we take equality and inclusion seriously and hold ourselves to account for our actions. Our ambition is to be an employer of choice and provide a great place to work for all our people. We believe that by working together diverse people with different experiences develop the most innovative ideas. Equality, diversity and inclusion is at the heart of how we improve quality of life and we work closely with our people across six ED&I Workstreams: Age, Disability, Faith, Gender, LGBT+ and Race. A diverse and skilled workforce is essential to our success.