Rolling Stock Insight Advisor

We're looking for a Rolling Stock Insight Advisor to be based at any of our office locations: London, Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester, York, Glasgow. At ORR we have adopted hybrid working and are currently expected to work from a workplace location for a minimum of two days per week or 40%.

The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) is the independent safety and economic regulator for Britain’s railways and monitor of performance on England’s strategic road network. The rail industry is preparing for the significant change proposed in the Railways Bill, and the anticipated establishment of Great British Railways (GBR). ORR’s rail role is therefore evolving to focus on monitoring, investigating and reporting on GBR’s operational and financial performance, while continuing its core responsibilities for health and safety regulation, competition, and some consumer protection roles.

At present, Planning and Performance holds Network Rail to account for its performance and its stewardship of the national railway network infrastructure. This role will evolve to focus on monitoring GBR across the breadth of its business plan and providing advice to funders on its operational management of the network. This will include activities relating to the provision of passenger train operations. This is a new function for ORR, arising from the introduction of our whole system monitoring and advice role for GBR.

The Rolling Stock Insight team will provide expertise in monitoring and providing advice throughout the lifecycle of GBR’s approach to rolling stock: from how the strategy and requirements are drawn from the railway’s long‑term strategy and train service plans, through design, procurement, introduction and deployment of the rolling stock, strategies and plans for undertaking light and heavy maintenance, and fleet cascades. The team will develop a presence with industry stakeholders and the supply chain.

It will work closely with other teams across ORR including specialist rail vehicle engineers and the wider engineering team (who provide assurance that GBR is acting in accordance with relevant parts of its licence and with applicable regulations e.g. interoperability), operations specialists and colleagues in other directorates (such as Economics, Finance and Markets and Railway Safety).

You will provide subject matter expertise within ORR for monitoring the design, development and implementation of GBR’s rolling stock strategies, plans and contracts and feed into ORR’s reporting and advice to funders as appropriate. Working with the Head of Rolling Stock Insight, you will support the development of ORR’s new regulatory approach in this area.

You will monitor and engage with GBR, as the team advises internally and externally to ensure that GBR’s rolling stock processes are suitably integrated within the railway’s whole system model. This includes the approach taken to identifying operational and passenger needs. You will support with monitoring the contracts and approach chosen to achieve high-quality maintenance, depot infrastructure and equipment – as the ORR team considers how this substantial area contributes to passenger experience and to the wider economics of the GB railway network.