Dstl
Health, Safety & Environment Principal (Energetics)
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Dstl Porton Down, Salisbury, Wiltshire, SP4 0JQ
At Dstl, our vision is to have a modern way of working efficiently, accommodating and enabling our people to create, collaborate and deliver. To do this successfully in this job will require attendance at Dstl Porton Down for a minimum of 60% of your working time. Where business needs allow, and with the agreement of your line manager, there may be the option for a combination of workplace and home-based working. This is a non-contractual arrangement.
Job Summary
At Dstl, we're looking for an experienced Health, Safety & Environment Principal (Energetics) to provide strategic leadership for safety across our high-hazard energetics activities. You'll play a vital role in ensuring our work is delivered safely, compliantly, and effectively, enabling cutting-edge science and technology that supports UK defence and security.
As a recognised expert in energetics safety, you'll provide trusted advice to senior leaders, shape safety strategy, champion a positive safety culture, and lead a specialist team of safety professionals. You'll work across Dstl and with external partners to drive continuous improvement, influence best practice, and ensure the highest safety standards are maintained.
Dstl recognises the importance of diversity and inclusion as people from diverse backgrounds bring fresh ideas. We are committed to building an inclusive working environment in which each employee fulfils their potential and maximises their contribution.
Job Description
What you'll do
- Provide expert leadership and assurance for energetics safety across Dstl.
- Influence strategic safety direction and policy development.
- Lead and mentor a team of safety specialists.
- Promote a positive, proactive, and learning-focused safety culture.
- Support incident investigations, root cause analysis, and continuous improvement activities.
- Develop safety capability, awareness, training, and standards across high-hazard environments.
- Collaborate with industry, academia, government, and regulatory stakeholders to share and adopt best practice.
As a leader at Dstl your focus is to create a safe, secure, sustainable and efficient organisation that supports both our mission and our people. To ensure that our operating model is agile to support one defence, and position Dstl as an organisation that can support with decision making, focus on the solutions that can make the biggest difference to the customer, reaching out to the ecosystem if required and have more impact for defence and security.
As a Dstl Leader you will:
- Confidently lead, with the ability to adapt quickly to changing direction and priorities. Positively, motivating, inspiring, encouraging and influencing others through effective communication and engagement.
- Maintain and Manage strong, effective relationships with peers, role modelling Enterprise Leadership to deliver the One Dstl vision ensuring collaboration on delivery outcomes and strategic direction.
- Create a positive working environment, aligned with Dstl Principles and Civil Service Behaviours, which supports diversity and inclusion, and enables people to excel.
- Consistently demonstrate and role model Dstl’s leadership behaviours to ensure our Dstl culture is maintained at all levels.
- Foster an inclusive working environment where open communication and psychological safety are prioritised to encourage constructive feedback and continuous improvement.
- Ensure that all team members understand and meet their defined accountabilities, regularly reviewing performance and providing necessary support and training to uphold Dstl’s standards, culture and values which aligns with the Civil Service Code and values.
- Actively endorse the Civil Service Line Management Standards to improve Line Management skills across the organisation.
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What You'll Do
- Provide expert leadership and assurance for energetics safety across Dstl.
- Influence strategic safety direction and policy development.
- Lead and mentor a team of safety specialists.
- Promote a positive, proactive, and learning-focused safety culture.
- Support incident investigations, root cause analysis, and continuous improvement activities.
- Develop safety capability, awareness, training, and standards across high-hazard environments.
- Collaborate with industry, academia, government, and regulatory stakeholders to share and adopt best practice.
As a leader at Dstl your focus is to create a safe, secure, sustainable and efficient organisation that supports both our mission and our people. To ensure that our operating model is agile to support one defence, and position Dstl as an organisation that can support with decision making, focus on the solutions that can make the biggest difference to the customer, reaching out to the ecosystem if required and have more impact for defence and security.
As a Dstl Leader you will:
- Confidently lead, with the ability to adapt quickly to changing direction and priorities. Positively, motivating, inspiring, encouraging and influencing others through effective communication and engagement.
- Maintain and Manage strong, effective relationships with peers, role modelling Enterprise Leadership to deliver the One Dstl vision ensuring collaboration on delivery outcomes and strategic direction.
- Create a positive working environment, aligned with Dstl Principles and Civil Service Behaviours, which supports diversity and inclusion, and enables people to excel.
- Consistently demonstrate and role model Dstl’s leadership behaviours to ensure our Dstl culture is maintained at all levels.
- Foster an inclusive working environment where open communication and psychological safety are prioritised to encourage constructive feedback and continuous improvement.
- Ensure that all team members understand and meet their defined accountabilities, regularly reviewing performance and providing necessary support and training to uphold Dstl’s standards, culture and values which aligns with the Civil Service Code and values.
- Actively endorse the Civil Service Line Management Standards to improve Line Management skills across the organisation.
Person specification
About You
You'll be a highly credible safety professional with significant experience in energetics, explosives, or other high-hazard environments. You will be confident operating at both strategic and operational levels, with the ability to influence senior stakeholders and translate complex safety requirements into practical solutions.
Essential Qualifications
- NEBOSH National Diploma (Level 6) or equivalent.
- NEBOSH HSE Certificate in Process Safety Management.
- Root Cause Analysis (Human Factors) training.
What You'll Bring
- Extensive experience leading safety within high-hazard environments.
- Deep technical knowledge of energetics safety and risk management.
- Strong leadership, coaching, and mentoring skills.
- Experience with safety cases, investigations, and assurance activities.
- Excellent stakeholder engagement and relationship-building abilities.
- A passion for developing people, improving safety performance, and enabling innovation safely.
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Join us and help shape a world-class safety culture while supporting some of the UK's most important science and technology programmes.
Please see our full job profile attached at the bottom of this page
Important Information
Our work in defence, security and intelligence requires our employees to be UK Nationals who are able to gain a high level of security clearance to undertake the projects we are involved in to protect us from security threats. For this reason, only UK Nationals will be able to apply for this role. If you are an international or dual-national candidate, and you think you have the skills we need, please consider applying to any of our government, security or defence partners.
This role will require full UK security clearance and you should have resided in the UK for the past 5 years. For some roles Developed Vetting will also be required, in this case you should have resided in the UK for the past 10 years.
Qualifications
- NEBOSH National Diploma in Occupational Health & Safety Level 6 or equivalent
- Recognised Root Cause Analysis training (Human Factors)
- NEBOSH HSE Certificate in Process Safety Management
Behaviours
We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:
- Leadership
- Communicating and Influencing
- Changing and Improving
- Making Effective Decisions
We only ask for evidence of these behaviours on your application form:
Leadership
Alongside your salary of £60,448, Defence Science and Technology Laboratory contributes £17,511 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides (opens in a new window).
Benefits
Dstl’s full range of great benefits can be found in the information pack which includes:
- Financial: An excellent pension scheme starting from 26% employer contribution (find out more here). In Year Rewarding Achievement bonuses and thank you vouchers. Rental deposit scheme and cycle to work scheme.
- Flexible working: Options include alternative working patterns such as; compressed hours, job shares and annualised hours (agreed number of hours per annum paid monthly i.e. working term-time only).
- Working hours: Flexibility around your working day (e.g. start time, finish time). Ability to bank hours in a 12 month reference period including the ability to accrue and use 3 days per calendar month.
- Where you work: Depending on your role, blended working may be available including remote working to suit you and your team. This can be discussed at interview.
- Annual leave: 25 days pro rata (rising to 30 after 5 years) plus 8 public holidays with the ability to buy/sell 5 additional days per annum.
- Family: Maternity, adoption or shared parental leave of up to 26 weeks with full pay, an additional 13 weeks statutory pay and a further 13 weeks unpaid
- Learning and Development: Dstl encourages and supports charterships, accreditations and provides employees access to fully funded apprenticeships up to level 7 (Masters Degree). Dstl will pay for 2 memberships with relevant bodies/institutions. Employees also have access to Civil Service Learning.
- Facilities: Onsite parking, EV Charging points, restaurants, cafés and gyms.
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