Associate Director - Fire Engineering

Cahill Design Consultants Ltd; Colchester (VT); Sur place; USD 115 000 - 148 000; Plein temps

Résumé du poste

Cahill Design Consultants Ltd in Colchester is seeking a senior fire engineer to lead complex fire engineering projects from strategy through delivery, setting the quality bar for multi-disciplinary teams.

You will own significant client relationships, influence project decisions with deep knowledge of building safety regulations, and mentor engineers at all levels while helping grow the firm.

Qualifications

• Significant fire engineering consultancy experience, 12 or more years post-graduate.
• Strong track record leading complex fire engineering projects and teams.
• Depth of knowledge across building safety regulations and approaches.
• Experience winning and holding client relationships over time.
• Ability to mentor engineers at different career stages.
• Commercial awareness: understand project economics and bids.
• Chartered Engineer status or close to it.

Responsabilités

• Direct complex fire engineering projects from strategy through delivery, setting the approach and quality bar for multi-disciplinary teams.
• Own significant client relationships and represent CDC in high-stakes settings where fire safety knowledge and judgement drive the decisions.
• Mentor fire engineers at all levels and influence growth from early career to senior.
• Contribute to bids and proposals, identify new work and client opportunities, and flag commercial risks early.
• Work with Directors on pricing, resourcing, and positioning the firm.
• Lead recruitment and team planning, and shape how we approach quality assurance.
• Help shape CDC’s standards, processes and culture with a voice in its future.

Connaissances

Fire engineering leadership

Client relationships

Mentoring engineers

Bid & proposals

Pricing & resourcing

Quality assurance

Formation

Chartered Engineer status (or near)

Description du poste

ABOUT CDC

Cahill Design Consultants is a privately owned, multidisciplinary engineering consultancy based in Colchester, delivering fire engineering, acoustic design and facade engineering services for over 12 years. We are 15 people and we have been deliberate about that. We are not beholden to external investors and we are not chasing growth for its own sake. The focus is on quality work and building a team that can sustain it.

We were named Best Place to Work at the 2023 CN Workforce Awards, which means more to us at this size than it would at a much larger firm. We have held Flexa Careers accreditation for three consecutive years, with an 88% employee-led score. We are ISO 9001:2015 registered and in 2025 donated 1% of turnover to charity, with 118 hours of team volunteering.

WHAT YOU WILL DO

• Direct complex fire engineering projects from strategy through delivery, setting the approach and quality bar for multi-disciplinary teams
• Own significant client relationships and represent CDC in high-stakes settings where fire safety knowledge and judgement drive the decisions
• Mentor fire engineers at all levels and genuinely influence how they grow, from early career through to senior
• Contribute to bids and proposals, identify new work and client opportunities, and flag commercial risks on projects early
• Work with the Directors on pricing, resourcing, and how we position the firm
• Lead recruitment and team planning, and help shape how we approach quality assurance
• Help shape CDC’s standards, processes and culture, with a real voice in what kind of place CDC becomes

WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR

ESSENTIAL

• Significant fire engineering consultancy experience, typically 12 or more years post-graduate, though we are interested in the depth of it as much as the count
• A strong track record leading complex fire engineering projects and teams
• Depth of knowledge across building safety regulations and both performance-based and prescriptive approaches
• Experience winning and holding client relationships over time
• Ability to mentor and develop engineers at different stages of their careers
• Commercial awareness: you understand project economics, resourcing decisions, and why bids win or fail
• Chartered Engineer status, or genuinely close to it
• Able to work two days per week in Colchester

DESIRABLE

• A track record in business development or winning new work
• Experience in smaller consultancy environments where people have broader influence
• Evidence of having helped build or change how a team or organisation operates
• Involvement in or exposure to building safety regulatory work
• Multi-sector project experience across residential, commercial, health, care and education

We welcome applications from people of all backgrounds.

Engineering and construction have a gender problem. That is not a secret. We are aware of it and we have made deliberate choices about how we hire, how we pay, and how we support people at different stages of their careers and lives.

Our enhanced parental leave policy applies equally regardless of gender or family structure, because we think that is the right thing to do, and because it is one practical way to push back against the imbalance that tends to hit hardest at the point of parenthood.

If you need any adjustments at any stage of this process, please just ask. We would rather adapt than lose a good person to an avoidable barrier.

[e-mail] | www.cdc-limited.co.uk