First Recruitment Group
Principal Civil Engineer
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Location: Retford, Nottinghamshire (3 Days onsite / 2 days remote) Duration: 12 Month Contract IR35: Inside
The Opportunity
We are seeking an experienced Civil & Structural Engineering Design Authority Lead to provide technical leadership, governance, and assurance across a large-scale, complex engineering programme. This is a unique opportunity to play a key role in a highly regulated, first-of-a-kind project environment, ensuring the successful integration of civil infrastructure, buildings, structures, and site-wide facilities within a multidisciplinary engineering programme.
The successful candidate will operate as the technical authority for civil and structural engineering, guiding design development through concept, definition, and delivery phases while ensuring compliance, safety, and design integrity throughout the project lifecycle.
Key Responsibilities
- Define and maintain the overall civil and structural engineering design vision, principles, objectives, and high-level requirements.
- Act as the Design Authority for civil and structural engineering, providing technical leadership and acceptance of design outputs.
- Establish and oversee engineering governance, standards, assurance processes, and technical review arrangements.
- Ensure effective integration between buildings, structures, site infrastructure, and wider engineering systems.
- Identify, assess, and manage technical risks, assumptions, dependencies, and interface challenges.
- Provide expert guidance on engineering safety, compliance, and statutory obligations.
- Lead concept development activities in areas of low design maturity, translating emerging requirements into robust engineering solutions.
- Support design maturity assessments and readiness reviews throughout key programme stages.
- Challenge design outputs where necessary, exercising independent engineering judgement to maintain design integrity and quality.
- Contribute to regulatory submissions, technical assurance activities, safety case development, and governance reviews.
- Support construction readiness and lifecycle progression through structured engineering assurance.
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About You
To be successful in this role, you will bring:
- Extensive experience in civil and structural engineering leadership within complex, highly regulated, or safety-critical environments.
- Strong understanding of civil infrastructure, buildings, structures, and site development projects.
- Proven experience operating within a Design Authority, Chief Engineer, Technical Authority, or similar senior engineering governance role.
- Demonstrable capability in multidisciplinary systems integration and management of complex engineering interfaces.
- Strong knowledge of UK engineering standards, governance processes, and statutory requirements.
- Understanding of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations (CDM) and wider health, safety, and compliance obligations.
- Experience managing technical uncertainty, evolving requirements, and immature design baselines.
- Excellent stakeholder engagement skills, with the ability to influence, challenge, and collaborate across diverse technical disciplines.
- Strong analytical and decision-making capabilities, with a focus on balancing technical, programme, and safety considerations.
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Desirable Experience
- Experience on major infrastructure, energy, nuclear, defence, transportation, utilities, or other large-scale engineering programmes.
- Involvement in design assurance, regulatory engagement, or safety case development.
- Chartered Engineer status (CEng) or working towards chartership through a recognised professional institution.
What You'll Bring
- Strategic engineering leadership.
- Exceptional technical credibility.
- A proactive approach to risk, governance, and quality.
- The ability to work effectively within complex and evolving project environments.
- Sound judgement, resilience, and a commitment to engineering excellence.
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