Senior Project Engineer - Design

Airbus; Belfast City District; On-site; GBP 75,000 - 105,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

Annual profit share

Contributory pension

Share options

36 hour work week

Flexible working around core hours

Job summary

Airbus Belfast Limited is seeking a senior design engineering leader to oversee a team across end-to-end design and integration projects. You will mentor engineers, manage programs, and ensure compliance with design authority requirements throughout development and manufacturing stages.

The role emphasizes mentoring, leadership, and delivering complex engineering packages while maintaining airworthiness and customer specifications within agreed budgets.

Qualifications

• Must have a comprehensive knowledge of aircraft structures and systems, or a specialist area within design engineering.
• Experience in management/project management is required.
• Familiarity with regulatory requirements, analysis methods, testing procedures and engineering processes.

Responsibilities

• Provide direct line management, technical leadership, and mentoring to a team of design engineers.
• Take functional responsibility for assigned projects or programmes, ensuring delivery within schedules and budgets.
• Maintain advanced design engineering expertise to advise across the design-to-manufacturing lifecycle to meet customer specs and airworthiness requirements.
• Conduct full project feasibility studies and coordinate with senior specialists, customers, and suppliers.

Skills

Technical leadership

Mentoring

People management

Education

BSc/BEng in engineering

Job description

Job Description

Security Clearance

You will be subject to BPSS and Export Control checks (including a criminal record check).

Location

Belfast

Grade

L3

Type

Full time

What’s In It For You

• Financial Reward: Competitive salary, annual profit share, contributory pension, share options


• Work / Life Balance: 36 hour week, flexible working around core hours and Friday afternoons off, flexible working

At Airbus in Belfast, we are pioneering the future of sustainable aerospace by delivering world‑class aerostructures and systems innovations. In this role, you will provide strong technical leadership across a broad spectrum of structures and systems installation packages, ensuring all engineering outputs rigorously comply with Design Authority requirements. As a key mentor within our Integrated Product Design Teams (IPTs), you will cultivate and mature talent, direct team activities, and embed crucial lessons learned into updated procedures to continuously raise the standard of engineering excellence.

How You Will Contribute to the Team

• Provide direct line management, technical leadership, and mentoring to a team of design engineers, overseeing all end-to-end team management activities and developing new approaches to complex engineering problems.


• Take functional responsibility for assigned projects or programmes, ensuring all engineering commitments are delivered strictly within agreed schedules, quality standards, and budgets.


• Maintain advanced design engineering expertise to advise user departments across the design-to-manufacturing lifecycle, ensuring components satisfy customer specifications and airworthiness regulatory requirements.


• Conduct full project feasibility studies to explore extensions or new work, collaborating closely with senior specialists, customers, and key suppliers to effectively coordinate broad engineering packages.

About You

Essential criteria

The position requires a comprehensive combination of applied and theoretical knowledge of aircraft structures and systems or, a specialist area within design engineering. It also requires thorough and comprehensive knowledge of the applicable regulatory requirements, analysis methods, testing procedures and engineering processes. Such understanding will have been gained by way of considerable experience and therefore candidates must:

• Possess a minimum of a BSc/BEng degree together with a minimum of 3 years’ relevant design engineering experience to include management/project management responsibility.

OR

Have lesser qualifications with a minimum of 5 years’ relevant design engineering experience to include management/project management responsibility.

• Demonstrate a proven track record of engaging, influencing, and collaborating with senior leadership, customers, suppliers and Certification Authorities.


• Demonstrate capability in leading, mentoring, and developing high‑performing teams of engineers, fostering operational resilience, maintaining high morale, and driving strategic execution through periods of organisational change and growth.


• Demonstrate organisational command and high‑impact communication skills, with the personal drive and strategic vision required to present complex engineering concepts clearly and steer multi‑faced engineering operations.

While applicants only need to meet the essential criteria, relevant desirable experience within your specific discipline may be used to shortlist candidates.

Desirable criteria

• Candidates should preferably be members of a professional engineering institution.

This job requires an awareness of any potential compliance risks and a commitment to act with integrity, as the foundation for the Company’s success, reputation and sustainable growth.

Closing date: 8th October 2026

Please note that meeting the mandatory criteria listed above guarantees consideration for the role, but does not ensure progression to the interview stage. In the event of a high volume of qualified applications, the selection panel reserves the right to shortlist and progress candidates who additionally meet one or more of the preferential (desirable) criteria.

About Us

Join Airbus Belfast - Pioneering Sustainable Aerospace for a Safe and United World.

As a premier centre of excellence for advanced aerostructures, our Belfast team drives the complete wing lifecycle - from concept design to in‑service support - for the world’s leading aerospace manufacturer. To support major multi‑million‑pound site investments and expanding operations, we are recruiting talented engineers to scale world‑class aerospace innovation into the future.

What We Do

• Global A220 Wing Nerve Center: Our specialist engineering teams drive the continuous design and technical development of the advanced composite A220 wing. With over 1,100 firm orders from 30+ global customers and 500+ aircraft flying across 25 international operators, Belfast is accelerating production ramp‑ups to meet record global demand. By leveraging cutting‑edge digital tools, advanced composite materials and automated manufacturing processes, our engineers are actively advancing performance, passenger experience and structural capabilities for the world’s most popular single‑aisle aircraft in its class.


• Iconic Commercial Programmes: Our expertise spans the entire Airbus commercial family, delivering critical innovations from the record‑breaking A350‑1000 fuel tank integration that enabled the longest flight in history, to the primary structural backbone for the A350F - the world’s most eco‑efficient cargo aircraft.

Shape the Future of Flight. To fuel our long‑term growth, we are expanding our engineering team in Belfast and seeking specialists across key disciplines, including structural design, stress analysis, aircraft integration and materials & processes. If you are ready to work with cutting‑edge technologies and define the next generation of aerospace, apply today. In Belfast, we make it fly!

How We Can Support You

Many of our staff work flexibly in many different ways, including part‑time. Please talk to us at the interview about the flexibility you need and we’ll always do our best to accommodate your request. Please let us know if you need us to make any adjustments for the selection process - you can share this with your Talent Acquisition Partner if you are invited to interview. Examples may include (but not exclusive to) accessible facilities; auxiliary aids; room layout, etc. Any information disclosed will be treated in the strictest confidence.

As a Disability Confident Employer, Airbus UK will offer an interview to any applicant that considers themselves to have a disability or long‑term condition under the Equality Act 2010 and meets the minimum criteria of the role (as set out in the job advert). To ‘opt in’, just select the option during your application submission and your application will be considered accordingly.

Company

Airbus Belfast Limited

Employment Type

Permanent

Experience Level

Professional

Job Family

Programme & Project Management

Equality and Diversity

Airbus is committed to achieving workforce diversity and creating an inclusive working environment. We welcome all applications irrespective of social and cultural background, age, gender, disability, sexual orientation or religious belief.

Airbus is, and always has been, committed to equal opportunities for all. As such, we will never ask for any type of monetary exchange in the frame of a recruitment process.