Principal Design Engineer – England

Overview

As a Principal Engineer, you will lead multi-disciplinary design coordination for turnkey HV GIS/AIS substations within project teams. You will work closely with execution and engineering groups to shape technical solutions and manage design submissions, reviews, and risk actions. The role combines technical depth in high-voltage substations with program and commercial interfaces to deliver on-time, within-budget projects. You will engage with customers to drive improvements and innovations, supporting risk and opportunity management. This is a hands-on, client-facing leadership position with a clear impact on project outcomes and site delivery.

Responsibilities

• Coordinate design team across disciplines
• Provide forecast cost to complete estimates and justify expenditure changes to the Project Director
• Manage programme and interface with planning engineers for design
• Coordinate with the Lead Engineer for design submissions, reviews, and hazard reviews
• Forecast completion and resource planning with the Lead Engineer
• Support Project Director with risk and opportunity assessments and actions
• Contribute to subcontracts/PO creation and manage subcontractors with related functions
• Support Commercial Manager on contractual and commercial aspects including Customer Instructions, Early Warning Notices, and Compensation Events
• Collaborate with customers to shape and deliver solutions and drive improvements

Key requirements

• Extensive experience in HV substation for utilities
• Knowledge of Transmission or Distribution practices (400kV to 11kV)
• Familiarity with NG standards is a plus
• Excellent communication with internal and external parties in a multicultural environment
• Result-oriented team player with proactive approach
• Ability to work to tight time scales
• Fluency in English (written and spoken)

• strong communication
• proactive mindset
• team collaboration
• HV substation engineering (utilities)
• Transmission/Distribution practices (400kV to 11kV)
• hazard reviews and design reviews

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