HM Inspector of Railways Electrical Safety Specialist

ORR's Function
The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) is the independent economic and safety regulator for Britain’s railways and monitor of performance on England’s strategic road network. This is an exciting time to join ORR, we are delivering a significant transformation programme to create a consistently agile and enabling organisation, with the right capability and a strong, inclusive culture that reflects our talented people. This will ensure we continue to operate as an independent, expert regulator, fit for the future and equipped with the capabilities and ways of working required to support sector-wide rail reform, while contributing to the government’s broader agenda on regulatory reform and economic growth.

Our directorate
Railway Safety Directorate ensures duty-holders in the railway industry manage health and safety risks effectively and comply with their statutory duties. Join us at the forefront of rail safety and help shape the future of Britain’s railway system. ORR’s Railway Safety (RS) directorate plays a vital role in keeping Britain’s railways moving safely and efficiently. From the entire mainline network to the London Underground, light rail, trams and the heritage sector, we oversee the safety of one of the most complex and dynamic transport systems in the world. We want to ensure our railway is not only a safe way to travel, but also a safe place to work. Across RS, more than 100 health and safety inspectors and specialists are recognised and respected throughout the industry. With significant enforcement powers and deep technical expertise, they help ensure the rail system operates safely and efficiently. The Specialist Team leads strategic intervention in high-risk areas of railway health and safety, helping to shape strategy, improve industry risk control, and support operational teams with specialist knowledge. We ensure the Railway Safety Directorate maintains a deep understanding of health and safety risks and drives continuous and sustained improvement across the rail sector for our specialist areas. Our work contributes to the delivery of ORR’s strategic objective of a healthier and safer railway.

Job Purpose
You will play a key role in shaping electrical safety across Britain’s railways, using your technical expertise to advise, inspect, support investigation and work closely with duty holders and industry bodies. Your engineering skills and specialist knowledge will be put to real-world use, helping to control electrical risks, drive high standards, and ensure compliance with vital safety legislation. Through your work, you’ll help make sure the right controls are in place to manage electrical hazards and keep the railway safe.

Key Responsibilities
Your key responsibilities will include:

• Support the development of railway safety’s strategic direction and priorities in electrical engineering.
• Carrying out inspections and support investigations on electrical engineering matters affecting railway duty holders (including mainline, Transport for London, tramways and heritage), taking enforcement action where necessary in order to protect the public and employees.
• Provide specialist electrical expertise to colleagues across ORR, contributing to intervention plans and evidence-based approaches to electrical risk.
• Sharing intelligence, support the development of and help maintain our Knowledge Hub to strengthen organisational learning.
• Engage confidently with internal and external stakeholders – from Board level to frontline staff and trade unions – to ensure ORR’s electrical safety approach is credible, consistent and well-understood.
• Delivering presentations, briefings, advice and elements of electrical safety training to promote good practice across ORR and the wider industry.
• Working alongside colleagues across ORR to drive improvements to the electrical engineering arrangements in place in all railway duty holders.

As ORR’s role in rail reform develops, the responsibilities of the role will likely evolve too, so it’s important that you can be flexible and adapt to changing needs.

Essential Criteria
We will assess your application against the following essential criteria:

• Behaviours
  Communicating and Influencing
  Working Together
  Making Effective Decisions
• Experience
  Strong technical knowledge of electrical engineering in the rail industry and/or another high-hazard industry.
  Understanding of key engineering principles, including safe-by-design, risk assessment, commissioning, maintenance and management of change for electrical and control systems.
• Technical
  Distribution and use of electricity in both high and low voltage systems with the capability to lead in these topic areas.
  The design and application of safe systems at work and understanding how safe systems of work are devised and applied.
  An understanding of how the Health and Safety regulatory framework is applied to electrical systems.

Mandatory Qualifications
Degree level qualification or equivalent in electrical engineering, or a directly related discipline, or the ability to demonstrate performance and experience at an equivalent professional level.

Mandatory Licences
Full driving licence.

Memberships
Must hold Chartered Engineer (CEng) status, or be within 12 months of achieving CEng at the point of application, evidenced by formal progression towards registration (e.g. application submitted or Professional Review Stage) and current membership of a relevant professional body (e.g. IET or RailEI).

For this role, you should hold or be able to meet the requirements of Network Rail Personal Track Safety Certification. Applicants should note that this will require passing a medical fitness examination.

At ORR, your personal and professional development is important to us – you will be enrolled on our Specialist Training Programme (STP) at the first available date. This one-year programme comprises both in-depth legal training and assessments and any further technical training that may be required.

Career Development Opportunities
Your career progression is important to us. We support this through various vocational courses and development opportunities, alongside regular performance reviews.

Why Join Us?
At ORR, we offer a large range of benefits, including generous annual leave and family friendly policies, time off for volunteering, a generous pension scheme, hybrid working, wellbeing initiatives and free counselling.

Contact Information
If you have a question that is specific to the role that you are applying for, contact the hiring manager at martin.davies@orr.gov.uk. Please note that we are unable to accept applications or CVs by email. For anything else, including technical support, contact HR at peopleservices@orr.gov.uk.