Senior Mechanical & Electrical Engineer (Electrical bias) in Leighton Buzzard

Join Our Team: Senior Mechanical & Electrical Engineer, Electrical bias opportunity

Location: Wales & South West / London & South West

Navigate your future and lock in your career as we keep our canals open and alive. The M&E maintenance and inspection team is responsible for keeping critical assets safe, compliant, and fully operational across the waterways. They carry out regular inspections, deliver planned preventative maintenance, and respond quickly to faults to minimise disruption. Using data and technical expertise, they assess asset condition and risk, ensuring work is prioritised effectively and meets all safety and regulatory standards. Their work supports long-term investment decisions and ensures key infrastructure, such as locks, bridges, and water control systems, remains reliable, keeping the network open and safe for users.

As a Senior M&E Engineer, you will lead a small team, providing technical expertise to manage significant infrastructure risk across the Trust’s assets. You will play a key role in assessing, maintaining, and prioritising M&E systems, as well as developing and delivering engineering solutions to support the Trust’s MEICA infrastructure. This role requires an experienced engineer with strong knowledge of waterway M&E assets and the ability to drive safe, effective, and sustainable outcomes.

Working Hours & Travel

Although this is a home-based role, there is a requirement to travel across our Wales & South West and London & South East regions to both manage our M&E assets and teams. Our hub spaces for collaborative meetings are located at - London Docklands, Little Venice, Leighton Buzzard, Sharpness, & Gloucester. Currently this is forecasted to be 1 - 2 days per week for site visits/meetings, with occasional overnight stays.

This role is great for someone who enjoys variety, splitting time between home, our Trust Hubs and regular site visits, and who’s happy to work flexibly when needed, including the occasional early start, late finish or weekend.

Core hours: 37 hours, 5 days a week, work pattern. You should be able to reasonably commute to one of the following hubs: Gloucester, London Docklands (E14 9ST), Little Venice, Leighton Buzzard.

Role Overview

Step into a key role shaping the Trust’s MEICA projects. As our Senior Electrical Engineer, you’ll lead the electrical delivery of priority projects, ensuring safe, reliable and sustainable engineering solutions. You’ll act as the go-to electrical specialist within multidisciplinary teams - reviewing designs, producing technical documentation and guiding colleagues with expert advice. Working alongside the Principal MEICA Engineer, you’ll help drive our project plan forward while championing our values and embedding inclusion across everything you deliver.

Key Responsibilities

• Line management of M&E Supervisors, driving engagement, motivation, performance, and development across the team.
• Provide support through the Trust’s performance excellence framework, including setting clear objectives and coaching team members to maintain required technical skills and competencies.
• Provide expert advice on MEICA engineering issues across the Trust, supporting informed decision-making at all levels.
• Develop and support MEICA inspection and maintenance programmes, delivered by contractors and internal teams, ensuring inspection outcomes are accurately recorded in SAP.
• Use maintenance outputs to prioritise major repairs, upgrades, and new installations, ensuring works are clearly defined and aligned to agreed strategies and standards.
• Manage and maintain high-quality MEICA asset data across SAP, GIS, and other operational systems, ensuring timely and accurate input and analysis.
• Assess inspection data and make risk-based recommendations on work prioritisation, balancing cost, time, resources, heritage, environmental, and safety considerations.
• Ensure compliance with M&E safety procedures within the area of responsibility, acting as Senior Authorised Person where required.
• Develop technical specifications and work briefs, ensuring timely delivery to programme, and provide technical oversight to ensure efficient and effective MEICA project delivery.
• Provide clear, evidence-based recommendations to senior managers and colleagues, using professional expertise to guide decisions.
• Contribute to operational efficiency by aligning work with agreed plans and strategies.
• Respond to internal and external enquiries relating to MEICA assets, using relevant information sources to provide accurate and timely responses.
• Demonstrate organisational values and behaviours at all times, promoting diversity and inclusion by challenging practices that do not align with organisational policies and standards.

About You

A qualified Electrical or Mechanical Engineer, Chartered or Incorporated (or working towards), with a strong technical background and substantial experience delivering complex M&E engineering activities. Brings proven expertise in inspection, maintenance, and infrastructure risk assessment, alongside a solid understanding of health and safety, governance, and compliance frameworks. Confident communicating technical information to a range of audiences, combining analytical thinking with practical delivery. Also an effective leader with experience managing and developing teams, working collaboratively across functions, and balancing wider business priorities to achieve safe, high-quality outcomes.

Skills & Qualifications

Technical Skills

• Chartered or Incorporated Electrical or Mechanical Engineer (or equivalent), with membership of a relevant professional body (e.g. IET, IMechE)
• Degree or HND in Electrical or Mechanical Engineering (or similar technical discipline).
• Substantial post-incorporation experience delivering complex M&E engineering activities.
• Proven experience inspecting and delivering M&E engineering works.
• Experience assessing M&E infrastructure risk.
• Good understanding of health and safety requirements.
• Awareness of governance, financial controls, and compliance systems.
• Evidence of Continuous Professional Development.
• Ability to communicate technical information clearly, including presenting data to non-technical audiences.

General Skills

• Experience line managing a range of M&E staff, including supervisors, technicians, and operatives.
• Ability to support wider business priorities, negotiating resources as needed.
• Strong collaboration skills, working across teams effectively.
• Encourages and demonstrates organisational values and behaviours in day-to-day work.

Contact & Application

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us at CRT.recruitment@canalrivertrust.org.uk. We encourage early applications as we may close the vacancy once we receive enough suitable candidates.

What We Offer

In addition to your annual base salary of £45,000 - £51,000, we also offer Car Cash Allowance (£425 per month), a competitive pension scheme, increasing holiday entitlement, and a range of employee benefits.

For a full breakdown of our benefits, check out our brochure here: EVP - 1.