Head of Engineering
| Posting date: | 15 May 2024 |
|---|---|
| Salary: | £64,432 to £74,825 per year |
| Additional salary information: | National: £64,432 - £73,014 London: £67,794 - £74,825. Specialist Government Science & Engineering allowance - £4250 |
| Hours: | Full time |
| Closing date: | 02 June 2024 |
| Location: | SW1A 2EG |
| Company: | Government Recruitment Service |
| Job type: | Permanent |
| Job reference: | 352470/2 |
Summary
Do you care about the safety of products and want to protect people and places? Can we use your skills, knowledge and experience to enable UK business to thrive? If the answer is yes, then we would like to hear from you!
We are the Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS), part of the Department for Business & Trade (Previously the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy). We are here for the purpose of making regulation work to deliver real world impact. Regulation is a powerful Government tool to address market failures, influence behaviour and promote positive action. Crafted and delivered well, regulation can be an enabler of growth, innovation and efficiency.
Since early 2018 we have been building a positive and creative team that enjoys a position of influence and respect within an organisation that continues to grow, most recently with the addition of construction products regulation planned.
Our primary purpose is to protect people and places from product-related harm, ensuring consumers and businesses can buy and sell products with confidence.
Further information can be found on our website here.
We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles. We embrace diversity and promote equality of opportunity. We are committed to building a team that represents a variety of backgrounds, perspectives and skills. There is a guaranteed interview scheme (DCS) for people with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.
We are Inclusive
We are fully committed to being an inclusive employer and ensuring equal opportunities. We are keen to make our workforce as diverse as possible and recognise how important inclusivity is to achieve the best outcomes. We hope to attract applications from all underrepresented groups.
We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation if required to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform crucial job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request accommodation.
The Role and Our Team
We are looking to recruit an experienced engineer to lead and grow our Engineering Team. The Engineering Team is a multidisciplinary team of engineers, scientists and technical policy specialists covering subjects from mechanical and electrical engineering to legal metrology and construction products. It is responsible for producing technical and engineering evidence to underpin policy and enforcement decisions in OPSS.
That advice takes the form of answering individual queries from OPSS colleagues, delivering research, designing testing proformas and creating position papers on subjects as diverse as e-scooters, gas hobs and button batteries to cladding, fire doors and concrete. The Engineering Team also has responsibility for the technical aspects of processes like designating standards and approving conformity assessment bodies.
The Engineering Team sits in the Evidence Impact Area (EIA) in OPSS and works closely with other teams in this Impact Area like Science, Technology, Analysis, Testing, Risk, Intelligence and OPSS’ Testing Laboratories, adding strength to the depth and breadth of our work through interdisciplinary collaboration. We strongly encourage continued professional development of our specialists and will look to head of the Engineering Team to both role model, promote and support the professional needs of the team including through Charterships and membership of relevant Professional Bodies.
Key Responsibilities
The post holder is responsible for ensuring the right processes, people and collaborations are in place to deliver robust, transparent and impactful engineering and technical advice for policy development and enforcement.
You will:
- Lead the delivery of engineering advice to support product safety and construction product policy and regulatory decision-making, through both direct advice and technical assurance of the technical and engineering advice, testing and research delivered by others both within and external to OPSS;
- Lead the engineering advisory response to product safety incidents, in line with OPSS’ Incident Management practices.
- Lead the creation of a streamlined testing advisory function within the team, that supports OPSS testing delivery service through technical advice on testing requirements depending on the product hazard and harm;
- Ensure that operational functions, such as designation of standards and appointment of approved bodies, are well-led and that technical advice is at the heart of decision making on these subjects;
- Build upon the existing foundations of a construction products research, testing, standards and technical leadership function, continuing its integration at the heart of the evidence impact area (EIA);
- Work across the Office and relevant other parts of Whitehall, including with Departments’ Chief Scientific Advisers, to understand the key engineering issues affecting consumer and construction product safety and compliance and to ensure evidence is at the heart of decision making within OPSS; and
- Provide technical leadership of GSE engineers within OPSS and across DBT/ wider CS as appropriate, in addition to representing the GSE profession outside of Government. This includes identifying opportunities for learning and development for yourself and others, keeping you all at the forefront of the engineering and technical specialisms in which OPSS needs you to be expert.