NAD Group - Maritime Principal Engineer

Thank you for your interest in the Maritime Principal Engineer role at the National Armaments Directorate Group

This is a distinct and highly influential engineering leadership role at the forefront of Defence maritime capability, offering the opportunity to shape the safety, sustainability and future effectiveness of some of the UK's most critical naval systems and programmes.

As the Maritime Principal Engineer role, you will play a pivotal role in ensuring that maritime equipment, systems and services are safe, resilient and capable of delivering operational advantage to the UK Armed Forces. The role sits within one of the largest and most diverse project delivery organisations in government, overseeing engineering activity that supports major naval programmes, in-service platforms and future maritime technologies. You will be responsible for setting engineering standards, driving continuous improvement and fostering a strong safety culture.

As a member of the Senior Leadership Group, you will provide strategic direction to a multidisciplinary workforce, working across multiple locations in the UK. You will engage regularly with senior military leaders, government officials, regulators, industry executives and international partners to ensure the successful delivery and sustainment of vital Defence capabilities.

We are seeking an exceptional leader with a strong track record of delivering complex programmes, operating in highly regulated environments, and leading through influence at the most senior levels. If you are motivated by challenge, committed to public service, and passionate about delivering outcomes that strengthen Defence and national security, we look forward to hearing from you.

The Principal Engineer in Maritime has the following areas of responsibility:

• Provide strategic engineering leadership across a complex maritime portfolio, ensuring the delivery and sustainment of safe, effective and operationally critical military capability.
• Lead safety and environmental governance and independent assurance, setting the standards and assurance frameworks that ensure equipment and systems are safe, compliant and fit for purpose throughout their lifecycle.
• Act as the senior engineering authority, providing expert advice to senior leaders and exercising independent judgement to challenge, halt or reshape activities where risk is unacceptable.
• Shape the future of maritime capability, influencing long-term defence planning, investment decisions and industrial strategy through expert engineering insight.
• Drive the delivery of engineering programmes and services, balancing priorities, resources and risk to maximise operational outcomes and value for Defence.
• Ensure robust systems engineering and technical assurance, embedding best practice to deliver resilient, integrated and mission-ready capabilities.
• Strengthen supply chain resilience and industrial partnerships, ensuring critical skills, expertise, equipment and support remain available to meet current and future needs.
• Build and lead strategic relationships with regulators, industry partners and senior stakeholders, driving continuous improvement, innovation and engineering excellence across the defence enterprise.
• Provide centralised decision making on engineering resourcing priorities for the Maritime Environment.

Open to UK nationals only.

This is an external competition and we welcome applications from candidates in both the public or private sector. To apply for this post, you will need to submit the following documents, via the following link (Apply here) by 23:55 on 23 November 2026.​

• A CV setting out your career history, with key responsibilities and achievements. Please ensure you have provided reasons for any gaps.​​
• A Supporting Statement of no more than 1200 words (font Arial, size 11), outlining how you consider your personal skills, leadership attributes, qualities and experience match the essential criteria above.​ Applications that exceed the word limit will not be considered. For assistance with Supporting Statements or if you experience any technical issues with submitting your application, please do reach out to the recruitment team prior to the closing deadline. Late submissions will not be considered.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.