Assistant Chief Design Engineer - Safety Centre

Assistant Chief Design Engineer – Civil Safety Centre

Derby

Full time

The Civil Safety Centre is seeking an Assistant Chief Design Engineer to provide senior technical leadership across the Civil Aerospace portfolio. This is an opportunity to shape the response to complex product safety issues, support critical engineering decisions and provide trusted, independent advice to senior engineering and programme leaders.

The Safety Centre is the Centre of Excellence for product safety within Rolls-Royce Civil Aerospace. It helps ensure that our products are safe by design and that safety concerns are identified, assessed and addressed throughout the product lifecycle.

As Assistant Chief Design Engineer, you will provide technical leadership to Safety Centre teams in the UK and Germany, ensuring that complex product safety concerns are addressed efficiently, effectively and proportionately. You will be a key interface with value stream engineering leadership, including Chief Engineers and Chief Design Engineers.

What you will be doing

• Act as a delegate for the Chief of Safety Centre when required.
• Provide technical leadership for significant product safety concerns across the Civil Aerospace portfolio.
• Guide engineering teams in understanding intended system behaviour, failure mechanisms and the resulting safety risk.
• Ensure safety concerns are assessed consistently and proportionately in line with organisational processes and regulatory expectations.
• Approve Safety Assessment Report (SAR) closure reports on behalf of Safety Centre leadership.
• Represent the Safety Centre in discussions with Chief Engineers, Chief Design Engineers, programme leaders and other senior stakeholders.
• Provide trusted, independent judgement and advice on complex safety matters.
• Coach engineers in systems engineering principles, investigation methodologies and engineering reasoning.
• Lead and develop a small team of Technical Leads.

Position Qualifications:

• A degree, or equivalent experience, in a relevant engineering discipline.
• Significant engineering experience gained across multiple disciplines, products or lifecycle phases.
• The ability to understand and integrate complex issues spanning systems, components, operational environments and organisational interfaces.
• Evidence of operating effectively beyond a single technical specialism.
• Strong technical judgement, with the confidence to challenge constructively and make balanced recommendations where information may be incomplete.
• Proven ability to lead, mentor and coach engineers at different career stages.
• Strong stakeholder management, communication and influencing skills.

Preferred Requirements:

• Chartered Engineer status, or progress towards professional registration.
• Experience across the Civil Aerospace product range.
• Product safety or safety assurance experience.
• Knowledge of certification and continuing airworthiness frameworks.

Our vision is to ensure that the excellence and ingenuity that shaped our history continues into our future. Our multi-year transformation programme aims to turn Rolls-Royce into a high-performing, competitive, resilient and growing company. Join us, and it can be your future vision too.

Rolls-Royce are committed to being a respectful, inclusive, and non-discriminatory workplace where individuality is valued, diverse perspectives fuel innovation, and everyone can thrive.

Please be aware that priority will be given to employees identified as being at high risk.

This job is advertised at the grades shown, and this is the desired operating level for this role. We encourage applications from candidates with relevant experience from any grade.

It is advised that you inform your current manager of your application for this role.

Grade: Level C

Closing Date: 14th October 2026

People Leader: Simon Walmsley 

For further information, please contact: Jaspreet Bagga