Lead Engineer - Governance and Assurance

Location: Manchester, Warrington, Derby with Hybrid working available

Salary: £57,600 - £75,600 DOE

About The Team

Our Governance and Assurance team sits in Engineering Capability, the heart of engineering excellence. We oversee and assure the processes and ways of working that underpin our success—ensuring they are efficient, fit for purpose, and always aligned with both organisational goals and regulatory requirements.

About Your Role

As a Governance and Assurance Senior Engineer in Engineering Capability, you will play a pivotal role in ensuring governance is applied as required, and driving assurance activities across engineering. You will be involved in Engineering Governance (development, review and approval) of engineering processes, templates and guidance, either leading the activities or supporting their delivery. During assurance activities, you will work closely with cross‑functional stakeholders to identify gaps, inconsistencies and non‑conformances, identifying the root cause and providing recommendations to the business. Part of the role is also to ensure that the recommendations are prioritised, actioned and deliver the required improvements. You need to have excellent stakeholder management and communication skills, and the ability to build trust and expand your network. Critical thinking and a keen eye for detail, underpinned by strong investigation report authoring skills are also required in this role.

Areas of Responsibility and Competency

• Lead the development, implementation, and continuous improvement of processes, templates and guidance.
• Ensure process changes are robust, controlled, and aligned with business strategy.
• Resolve process‑related issues and communicate changes to users.
• Evaluate the implementation of processes and ways of working, ensuring compliance with organisational and regulatory requirements.
• Collaborate with nuclear assurance, quality and design teams to identify and mitigate key process, and improve the process landscape.
• Conduct regular assurance investigations, leading structured interviews and reviewing evidence, to identify gaps and recommend resolution actions.
• Build and maintain strong relationships with stakeholders across engineering, assurance, and design teams.
• Lead or support the Governance and Processes Community of Practice sessions, to share updates and promote improvement activities.
• Communicate process updates, investigation findings, and recommendations clearly and effectively.
• Foster a culture of openness, inclusion, and continuous improvement.
• Apply critical thinking to analyse complex process issues and identify root causes.
• Identify patterns of business culture behaviour in cross‑functional teams, understand their impact and offer recommendations.
• Identify gaps and recommend creative, practical solutions that enhance process efficiency, safety, and quality.
• Use data and evidence to inform decision‑making and drive improvements.
• Maintain attention to detail, ensuring consistency and high standards in all outputs.

Success Criteria

• Build strong relationships with key stakeholders across engineering, assurance, and cross‑cutting teams.
• Gain a thorough understanding of current process landscape and planned improvement activities.
• Support and lead Governance Reviews, ensuring actions and outcomes are clearly tracked and communicated.

• Lead or co‑lead the implementation of improvements within engineering, ensuring alignment with business strategy and regulatory standards.
• Establish and maintain robust feedback loops with stakeholders, to identify gaps and inconsistencies, and agree resolution actions.
• Collaborate with assurance and quality teams to conduct regular process checks, driving consistency and high‑quality outputs.
• Lead or support the development and roll out of user‑friendly templates and guidance materials to support process adherence.
• Contribute to the delivery of improvements based on the assurance activity recommendations.

• Be recognised as an engineering governance and assurance point of contact, both within the Rolls‑Royce SMR assurance network and across the wider organisation.
• Influence the evolution of governance and assurance frameworks, ensuring they remain fit for purpose as the business grows and changes.
• Deliver clear, insightful assurance reports and recommendations that shape business actions and strategic decisions.
• Lead improvements based on assurance investigation recommendations directly, driving the changes within own team, or indirectly, by assigning improvement activities to key stakeholders to support them to deliver.

Beneficial Training, Qualification or Equivalent Work Experience

• Engineering degree (or equivalent experience) preferred.
• Chartership with a professional institution is a plus.
• Experience in process governance, assurance, or a related field ideally within a highly regulated industry.
• Experience in Continuous Improvement projects with cross‑functional teams.

Salary and Package

• We anticipate paying a salary of between £57,600 - £75,600 DOE.
• Bonus - Performance related target opportunity 12.5%.
• Benefits Allowance – £2,200 per annum, enabling you to create a bespoke package.
• Pension - 12% employer and 6% employee contributions.
• Holidays - 28 days holiday (+ public holidays) and the ability to buy or sell up to 4 days.
• Private Medical Insurance - BUPA single cover health care.
• Life Assurance - 6x pensionable pay.
• £250 - One‑off payment for new starters for home office purchases.

Why Join Us?

• A flexible, inclusive, and supportive working environment.
• Opportunities for career growth in a rapidly scaling business.
• A culture that values diversity, innovation, and continuous learning.

We are an equal opportunities employer and welcome applications from all backgrounds. Inclusivity is important to us, and as a Disability Confident organisation, we are committed to fair, supportive, and continually improving recruitment practices that ensure everyone has the opportunity to thrive. Confidence can sometimes hold us back from applying for a job. But we’ll let you in on a secret: there’s no such thing as a ‘perfect’ candidate. If you feel you meet 75% of the requirements for this role, we would love to hear from you. Also, if you are considering a career move or a sector‑jump, please get in touch – we welcome applications from people with transferable skills.

Our Application Process

Due to the safety regulations within the nuclear industry, applicants will be required to participate in additional screening. These are:

• Obtaining Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS) clearance.
• Satisfactory completion of a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check.
• Satisfactory completion of a basic financial probity check.