Lead Project Engineer

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The
Role:

This position has been created to strengthen leadership within Elgin’s growing Project Engineering function. The successful candidate will take on a dual role: leading and managing a team of approximately five Project Engineers while continuing to act as the lead project engineer on a portfolio of utility‑scale solar PV and BESS projects.

Approximately 50% of the role will involve direct people management, team coordination, and process improvement. The remaining 50% will be hands‑on project engineering work across the full project lifecycle — from early‑stage development through to construction and energisation.

The role requires an experienced engineer who can set technical standards, mentor and develop junior engineers, and act as the day‑to‑day interface between the Project Engineering team and the Head of Engineering. A strong commercial awareness is essential — the successful candidate must understand how engineering decisions impact project value, cost assumptions, and programme, and be able to prioritise work that supports project commercialisation and investment readiness.

The role also requires someone who works effectively across functional boundaries, collaborating closely with development, commercial, PMO, grid, legal, M&A, construction and operations teams to ensure engineering is fully integrated into project delivery and decision‑making.

What you will do:

Team Leadership & Management (50%)

• Line manage approximately five Project Engineers, including objective setting, performance reviews, and professional development planning.
• Conduct regular 1:1s, provide coaching and mentoring, and support team members’ technical growth and career progression within Elgin.
• Manage workload allocation and resource planning across the PE team, ensuring projects are appropriately staffed and priorities are balanced.
• Act as the first point of escalation for technical queries and project issues raised by the PE team, resolving where possible and escalating to the Head of Engineering or specialist engineers as needed.
• Drive consistency and quality of engineering outputs across the team by establishing and maintaining standard templates, checklists, review processes, and ways of working.
• Support recruitment and onboarding of new Project Engineers as the team grows.
• Provide regular reporting to the Head of Engineering on team capacity, project status, risks, and engineering quality metrics.
• Identify training needs and coordinate technical development activities for the team, including knowledge‑sharing sessions and lessons‑learned reviews
• Champion a culture of technical rigour, collaboration, and continuous improvement within the Project Engineering function fostering strong working relationships across development, commercial, grid, construction, and other internal teams to ensure engineering is aligned with wider project and business objectives.

Project Engineering (50%)

• Engage with project development teams at an early stage to provide engineering input into feasibility assessments, site selection, and project structuring.
• Conduct constructability reviews of proposed project designs, identifying buildability issues, construction risks, and value engineering opportunities at the development stage. Directing to specialist engineers for input as required.
• Provide technical review and commentary on planning application documents, including layout drawings, technical reports, Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA), and technical appendices, to ensure engineering accuracy and compliance.
• Support the preparation and technical review of grid connection…