Overview

Job title: Principal Mechanical Engineer
Location: Portsmouth Naval Base – hybrid and flexible working arrangements available; speak to your recruiter about options for this role.
Salary: Up to £60,000 (dependent on skills and experience).

Responsibilities

• Lead and conduct early lifecycle engineering activities, including technical investigations, root cause analysis and feasibility studies.
• Define equipment/system technical requirements and acceptance routes.
• Apply engineering theory/technical knowledge to support findings and recommendations.
• Apply and manage requirements to drive the development of design solutions for marine mechanical equipment and systems.
• Undertake design substantiation via calculation for marine mechanical systems and equipment, including mechanical simulation/analysis in structures, fluids and heat transfer, with appropriate optimisation and verification/validation (acceptance) routines.
• Manage technical risk, safety, requirements compliance and design maturity to align with design review gate requirements.
• Present to engineering design review panels and produce design/analysis/technical reports, system/equipment specifications, scopes of work; assess supplier responses.
• Liaise with MOD establishments, test facilities, sub-contractors, suppliers and customers as required to satisfy project needs.

Qualifications and Experience

• Qualified to degree level, or equivalent, in mechanical engineering or a related STEM subject.
• Ideally professionally registered (CEng) through a relevant engineering institution (e.g., IET, IMechE, IMarEST) or have a defined plan to obtain registration.
• Proactive continuation of professional development.
• Experience applying marine/mechanical engineering in complex industrial/military applications.
• Competent in assessing mechanical solutions from first principles using recognised toolsets.
• Awareness of project management principles with consideration of time, scheduling, cost and quality factors.
• Awareness of Systems Engineering and its benefits to complex engineering projects.
• Experience applying defence and marine standards, including DefStan, classification society rules, ISO and relevant regulatory frameworks (MCA, IMO).

Benefits

• Competitive pension scheme.
• Share plans and a wide range of flexible discounted health, wellbeing and lifestyle benefits, including a green car scheme, private health plans and shopping discounts.
• Annual incentive eligibility may apply.

The Warship Technical Authority team

The Warship Technical Authority (WTA) – Principal Mechanical Engineer will deliver professional engineering services to Warship Support in the areas of Naval Marine Mechanical Equipment and Systems. The Principal Mechanical Engineer will routinely lead others across the engineering lifecycle to support in-service Naval Marine Platforms, providing mechanical engineering capability across a broad set of challenges to meet the needs of specific Naval platforms, the WTA team and the customer programme.

Why BAE Systems?

This is a place where you’ll be able to make a real difference. You’ll be part of an inclusive culture that values thought, rewards integrity and merit, and where you’ll be empowered to fulfil your potential. We welcome people from all backgrounds and aim to make our recruitment processes as inclusive as possible.

Additional information

If you have a health condition or disability that may affect your performance in certain assessment types, please speak to your recruiter about reasonable adjustments. Please note that many roles at BAE Systems are subject to security and export control restrictions. These restrictions mean that factors such as your nationality, previous roles, or place of birth can restrict the roles you are eligible to perform.

All applicants must at minimum achieve Baseline Personnel Security Standard. Many roles also require higher levels of Security Vetting, typically with 5 to 10 years of continuous residence in the UK, depending on the vetting level required for the role, to allow for meaningful security vetting checks.

Closing Date: 11 September 2025.

We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if we receive sufficient applications. If you are interested, please submit your application as early as possible. LI-TP1 LI-Hybrid