Principal Fire Engineer

At National Grid, we keep people connected and society moving. But it’s so much more than that. National Grid supplies us with the environment to make it happen. As we generate momentum in the energy transition for all, we don’t plan on leaving any of our customers in the dark. So, join us as a Principal Fire Engineer and find your superpower.

In this role, you will act as the subject matter expert for fire safety and fire risk management across National Grid Electricity Transmission (NGET) high voltage substation and infrastructure assets.

You will lead development and implementation of fire safety strategies across England and Wales, ensuring that assets, projects, policies, specifications and risk assessments remain aligned to relevant legislation, technical standards, regulatory requirements and good industry practice.

You will provide expert technical advice to projects on fire design, own and maintain key technical policy and specifications, support design assurance activities, and help shape the way fire risk is managed across both new infrastructure and the legacy estate.

• Act as the subject matter expert for fire safety, fire engineering and fire risk management across NGET high voltage substations and associated infrastructure.
• Lead the development, review and implementation of fire strategies, policies, technical specifications, risk assessments and compliance reviews.
• Own and maintain relevant technical policy and specifications for fire risk management
• Provide expert advice to projects on fire design, fire safety requirements and compliance with Building Regulations, standards, codes of practice and good industry practice.
• Support design assurance activities, including review of fire strategy documents, fire engineering assumptions, Technical Deviation requests and project compliance evidence.
• Develop a clear understanding of fire risk across the legacy estate, including risks associated with third-party activities and adjacent land uses.
• Lead and support the asset management approach for fire safety systems, including deluge systems, fire barriers, suppression systems and associated inspection and maintenance requirements.
• Specify, interpret and challenge fire and smoke modelling outputs, including CFD, zone models and other fire dynamics studies.
• Support consistent fire risk assessment outputs and action management across sites, projects and operational teams.
• Feed fire risk insights into wider resilience planning, emergency planning and long‑term asset management strategies.
• Build strong relationships with internal teams, delivery partners, designers, contractors, operational colleagues and external stakeholders.
• Support effective communication with Fire and Rescue Services and other external bodies where fire safety risks, mitigations or emergency response arrangements need to be understood.
• Keep up to date with changes in regulation, fire safety standards, industry practice, emerging technology and innovation in fire engineering.
• Represent National Grid on relevant industry groups, technical forums, committees and external working groups.
• Mentor and support colleagues across Asset Management, Engineering, Operations and project teams to improve fire safety capability and decision‑making.

• A degree in a relevant engineering, science or fire safety discipline, ideally supported by an MSc in Fire Engineering or equivalent specialist experience.
• Chartered Engineer status, ideally through the Institution of Fire Engineers, or evidence that you are actively working towards chartership.
• Strong technical knowledge of fire engineering, fire safety…