Senior Design Engineer - Structural Steel
Location: Wakefield, West Yorkshire
Salary: Competitive, depending on experience
Job Type: Full-time, Permanent
Hours: 37.5 hours per week
The Opportunity
Some steel structures are straightforward. Others require someone who can look beyond the drawing and understand exactly how every load, connection and calculation comes together.
That's where a Senior Design Engineer makes the difference.
A leading structural steelwork specialist is looking for an experienced Senior Design Engineer to join its team in Wakefield, taking responsibility for delivering safe, efficient and commercially viable structural engineering solutions across a diverse range of projects.
This is a role for someone who understands structural mechanics, is confident with complex calculations and knows what it takes to take a design from concept through to a solution that can actually be manufactured and built.
The Role
As Senior Design Engineer, you'll be responsible for developing structural engineering solutions that are safe, compliant, efficient and practical to build.
You'll work closely with clients, colleagues and other professionals, interpreting construction plans, drawings and specifications before developing designs that meet project requirements, relevant standards and agreed budgets.
This is a technically focused position, but it's also collaborative. You'll need to communicate your designs clearly, provide progress updates and work effectively with different teams throughout the project lifecycle.
What you'll be doing
- Designing, analysing and delivering structural engineering solutions for structural steel projects
- Working with clients, colleagues and other professionals to develop project requirements
- Reviewing construction plans, drawings and specifications
- Developing design solutions using current industry software
- Applying structural loadings and calculating stresses and load paths
- Producing detailed structural design calculations
- Ensuring designs meet relevant legislation, industry standards and regulations
- Considering buildability, structural integrity and cost-effectiveness throughout the design process
- Ensuring projects meet environmental, health and safety requirements
- Supporting the preparation of tender and bid submissions
- Providing technical input throughout project development
- Maintaining high standards of quality in line with company procedures
- Providing progress reports to clients and senior management
- Keeping technical knowledge up to date through continued professional development
- Working collaboratively with the wider team to deliver successful project outcomes
What are they looking for?
This is a senior-level structural design position, so strong technical knowledge and substantial industry experience are essential.
You'll ideally have:
- Extensive experience working within a structural design role
- Strong knowledge of structural mechanics and engineering principles
- Excellent structural design calculation capabilities
- Strong understanding of structural steel design
- Experience working with industry-standard structural engineering software
- Experience with Tekla Structural Designer / Fastrak Building Designer
- Experience with Fastrak Portal Frame
- Experience with Masterframe / STAAD Pro
- Experience with MasterSeries Connections
- Strong knowledge of structural loadings, stresses and load paths
- Excellent understanding of structural integrity and buildability
- Experience working to relevant engineering standards and regulations
- Strong communication and client-facing skills
Experience in structural steel connection design would be particularly advantageous.
The Person
Technical ability is at the heart of this position, but the right person will also be comfortable taking ownership of their work and communicating with people at all levels.
You'll be someone who can take a complex engineering problem, work through the calculations and arrive at a solution that isn't just theoretically sound but practical, buildable and commercially sensible.
You'll also be:
- Analytical and methodical
- Commercially aware
- Highly detail-oriented
- Confident making technical decisions
- Comfortable working to deadlines
- A strong communicator
- Able to work independently while contributing effectively to a wider team
- Committed to maintaining high engineering and quality standards
- Keen to continue developing your technical knowledge
Why consider it?
If you're an experienced Structural Design Engineer looking for a role where your technical knowledge will genuinely be put to use, this is an opportunity to join an established structural steel business working across a broad range of projects.
You'll be involved in the engineering behind the steel - from loadings and calculations through to connections, buildability and final design solutions - while working alongside experienced professionals across the wider business.
If you're ready to take the next step in your structural design career and work on projects where the engineering really matters, we'd like to hear from you.
