Head Engineer
Posted 1 day ago by Experis UK
Negotiable
Outside
Undetermined
England, United Kingdom
Summary: The Chief Engineer for Maritime Defence & Hydrographic Systems will lead the technical authority and architectural governance of a critical maritime defence programme, ensuring compliance with international regulations and standards. This senior technical leadership role involves overseeing the evolution of legacy systems into secure cloud-native environments while interfacing with various stakeholders. The position requires deep expertise in hydrographic and oceanographic domains, as well as experience in modernising large-scale systems. The role is pivotal in ensuring operational safety and resilience in maritime navigation services.
Key Responsibilities:
- Act as Design Authority across all maritime and hydrographic engineering domains.
- Define and enforce engineering standards, security posture, and architectural principles.
- Provide assurance for safety-critical maritime systems operating in defence environments.
- Oversee secure cloud architecture within Azure (identity, encryption, private networking, resilience).
- Provide deep technical expertise in tidal harmonic and non-harmonic prediction, fluid dynamics, and sea level modelling.
- Lead implementation and assurance of S-84 dataset validation frameworks.
- Drive adoption and integration of S-100 compliant datasets and services.
- Oversee ENC production, validation, and digital navigation product pipelines.
- Ensure systems meet defence-grade security and resilience standards.
- Align maritime navigation services with SOLAS regulatory obligations.
- Provide technical oversight across SOLAR, Wayfinder, and POLAR-aligned maritime systems.
- Support integration of sensor-derived data into operational maritime insights platforms.
- Lead migration of legacy C++ and Windows-based estates to secure Azure infrastructure.
- Architect high-availability systems for operational continuity.
- Drive DevSecOps maturity across pipelines and secure delivery processes.
Key Skills:
- Proven experience leading engineering within maritime defence or hydrographic programmes.
- Experience operating within SOLAS-aligned maritime systems.
- Experience modernising large-scale legacy estates into secure cloud environments.
- Background in safety-critical, high-availability, regulated environments.
- Strong stakeholder engagement across defence, regulatory, and operational bodies.
- Experience with UK or allied hydrographic authorities (desirable).
- Exposure to sonar-derived maritime data systems (desirable).
- Knowledge of electronic navigational chart (ENC) ecosystems (desirable).
- Experience delivering systems under defence procurement frameworks (desirable).
- Tidal harmonic modelling or fluid dynamics/coastal hydrodynamics (desirable).
- Hydrographic dataset validation (S-84) (desirable).
- S-100 data framework transition (desirable).
Salary (Rate): undetermined
City: undetermined
Country: United Kingdom
Working Arrangements: undetermined
IR35 Status: outside IR35
Seniority Level: Senior
Industry: Other
Chief Engineer – Maritime Defence & Hydrographic Systems Contract | Multi-Year Programme | Outside IR35
We are seeking a Chief Engineer to lead the technical authority and architectural governance of a mission-critical maritime defence programme. This programme underpins operational maritime safety, navigation assurance, and hydrographic data services aligned to international maritime regulation and defence requirements. The role will oversee the evolution of legacy maritime systems into secure, resilient cloud-native environments while ensuring compliance with emerging hydrographic data standards. This is a senior technical leadership position operating at programme level, interfacing with defence stakeholders, regulatory authorities, and engineering leadership teams.
Programme Context
The system environment includes:
- Maritime safety and navigation services aligned to International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS)
- Validation and assurance of hydrographic datasets under IHO S-84
- Transition from legacy ENC frameworks to the emerging IHO S-100 data standard
- Secure ingestion and processing of maritime signal data (including sonar/sonobuoy-derived sources)
- Migration from large on-premise C++ estates into Microsoft Azure secure environments
Key Responsibilities
- Technical Authority & Governance
- Act as Design Authority across all maritime and hydrographic engineering domains.
- Define and enforce engineering standards, security posture, and architectural principles.
- Provide assurance for safety-critical maritime systems operating in defence environments.
- Oversee secure cloud architecture within Azure (identity, encryption, private networking, resilience).
- Hydrographic & Oceanographic Leadership
- Ideally, be able to provide deep technical expertise in:
- Tidal harmonic and non-harmonic prediction
- Fluid dynamics / hydrodynamic modelling
- Sea level modelling and forecasting
- Lead implementation and assurance of S-84 dataset validation frameworks.
- Drive adoption and integration of S-100 compliant datasets and services.
- Oversee ENC production, validation, and digital navigation product pipelines.
- Defence & Operational Integration
- Ensure systems meet defence-grade security and resilience standards.
- Align maritime navigation services with SOLAS regulatory obligations.
- Provide technical oversight across SOLAR, Wayfinder, and POLAR-aligned maritime systems.
- Support integration of sensor-derived data into operational maritime insights platforms.
- Legacy Modernisation
- Lead migration of legacy C++ and Windows-based estates to secure Azure infrastructure.
- Architect high-availability systems for operational continuity.
- Drive DevSecOps maturity across pipelines and secure delivery processes.
Essential Experience
- Proven experience leading engineering within maritime defence or hydrographic programmes.
- Experience operating within SOLAS-aligned maritime systems.
- Experience modernising large-scale legacy estates into secure cloud environments.
- Background in safety-critical, high-availability, regulated environments.
- Strong stakeholder engagement across defence, regulatory, and operational bodies.
Desirable
- Experience with UK or allied hydrographic authorities.
- Exposure to sonar-derived maritime data systems.
- Knowledge of electronic navigational chart (ENC) ecosystems.
- Experience delivering systems under defence procurement frameworks.
- Tidal harmonic modelling OR fluid dynamics / coastal hydrodynamics
- Hydrographic dataset validation (S-84)
- S-100 data framework transition