Principal Engineer – Stealth (Finite Element Analysis) in England

Location: Barrow-in-Furness (Onsite)

Salary: Competitive (Commensurate with skills and experience)

What You’ll Be Doing:

• Lead the development of the Stealth Engineering FEA capability.
• Performing detailed FEA simulations to assess structural behaviour and its effect on stealth-related performance.
• Analysing structure-borne vibration and fluid-borne noise characteristics across components and systems.
• Preparing clear technical reports and presenting findings to design teams and stakeholders.
• Collaborating with multi-disciplinary teams to ensure that stealth, structural, and safety requirements are fully met.
• Assisting in model validation, correlation with physical tests, and refinement of analysis techniques.

Essential Your skills and experiences:

• A degree in Mechanical Engineering, Structural Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or a related STEM discipline.
• Experience with FEA software (such as ANSYS, Abaqus, COMSOL, or similar).
• Strong understanding of structural mechanics and finite element principles.
• Ability to interpret results and communicate complex findings in a clear, concise way.
• A methodical approach and attention to detail.

Desirable:

• Experience working in defence, naval architecture, or highly regulated industries.
• Familiarity with dynamic, thermal, or coupled analyses.
• Knowledge of stealth or signature control technologies.
• Programming or scripting skills (e.g. Python, MATLAB) to support modelling automation.
• Experience with high-performance computing environments.

Benefits:

As well as a competitive pension scheme, BAE Systems also offers employee share plans, an extensive range of flexible discounted health, wellbeing and lifestyle benefits, including a green car scheme, private health plans and shopping discounts – you may also be eligible for an annual incentive.

The Stealth Numerical Modelling Team: An excellent opportunity has arisen for a Principal Engineer – Stealth (Finite Element Analysis) (FEA), working within The Stealth Numerical Modelling Team. You will be joining our Stealth Engineering Department as a Principal Stealth Engineer – Finite Element Analysis and play a key role in the structural design and stealth performance of the UK’s next-generation submarines. You’ll work as part of a small, high-impact team, helping reduce signatures through advanced simulation and analysis, supporting executive engineers in defining and delivering the whole boat signature requirements and in service signature goals.

In this role the Principal Engineer shall provide technical leadership and oversight to less senior engineers, providing resourcing and advice on tasks. This is an ideal role for an engineer with a passion for solving complex structural problems, using simulation tools to influence real-world designs. You’ll work across multiple submarine programmes and engage with a wide network of specialists across the department, the MoD, and partner organisations.

We offer relocation support packages across all Submarines roles, subject to meeting eligibility criteria.

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 diversity of thought, rewards integrity, and merit, and where you’ll be empowered to fulfil your potential. We welcome people from all backgrounds and want to make sure that our recruitment processes are as inclusive as possible. If you have a disability or health condition (for example dyslexia, autism, an anxiety disorder etc.) that may affect your performance in certain assessment types, please speak to your recruiter about potential reasonable adjustments.

Please be aware that many roles at BAE Systems are subject to both security and export control restrictions. These restrictions mean that factors such as your nationality, any nationalities you may have previously held, and your place of birth can restrict the roles you are eligible to perform within the organisation. All applicants must as a minimum achieve Baseline Personnel Security Standard. Many roles also require higher levels of National Security Vetting where applicants must typically have 5 to 10 years of continuous residency in the UK depending on the vetting level required for the role, to allow for meaningful security vetting checks.

Closing Date: 10th February 2026. We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if we receive sufficient applications for the role. Therefore, if you are interested, please submit your application as early as possible.