Principal Design Engineer

Overview

As a Principal Design Engineer, you will provide technical leadership across water and wastewater projects, guiding multidisciplinary teams to deliver high-quality solutions. You will act as a technical authority, ensuring designs meet standards, client requirements, and project objectives while driving governance, innovation, and best practice. You’ll mentor engineers and coordinate with clients, suppliers, and construction teams to enable successful delivery in a collaborative, safety-conscious environment. This role plays a key part in shaping engineering standards and advancing critical water infrastructure solutions.

Responsibilities

• Provide technical leadership across multidisciplinary water and wastewater projects
• Deliver high-quality engineering solutions with Design Managers and Principal Engineers
• Act as a technical authority to resolve complex engineering challenges
• Ensure designs meet standards, regulations, and client objectives
• Provide governance and technical assurance across your discipline
• Coordinate with other engineering disciplines for integrated project delivery
• Support procurement, construction, commissioning, and site teams with technical guidance
• Drive innovation, continuous improvement, and engineering best practice
• Mentor and develop engineers and designers
• Provide technical oversight and line management where required
• Build strong relationships with clients, suppliers, stakeholders, and project teams

Key requirements

• Degree in Civil Engineering or related discipline; equivalent qualification
• Significant municipal water and wastewater sector experience
• Chartered Engineer (CEng) or working towards chartership
• Experience in contractor, consultancy, or design-and-build environments
• Strong knowledge of water and wastewater assets and processes
• Understanding of health and safety legislation and industry regulations
• Experience with QA and health and safety management systems
• Ability to review and approve engineering calculations, reports, specs, and design docs
• Experience undertaking hydraulic calculations and assessments
• Knowledge of structural design for water-retaining structures and reinforced concrete detailing
• Experience leading client discussions and engineering solutions
• Experience leading design reviews, progress meetings, and site meetings
• Working knowledge of NEC contracts
• Strong communication and technical report-writing skills
• Proven ability to lead teams and deliver projects to programme and budget
• Experience coordinating suppliers, subcontractors, construction teams, and internal stakeholders
• Understanding of design planning, resource allocation, and programme management
• Experience working within multidisciplinary teams
• Passion for mentoring and developing engineers

• strong communication
• leadership
• mentoring
• hydraulic calculations
• design reviews
• design documentation

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