UAV Design Engineer in Bedford

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Saab UK is part of Scandinavia’s largest defence company, bringing together the best of Swedish and British innovation.

Saab offers world-leading solutions and services in defence, aviation, space, and civil security to keep people and society safe.

Our UK presence has been growing at pace, meaning we can offer a wide range of opportunities for personal fulfilment and career growth.

We currently employ over 600 people across eight sites in the UK, and our specialisations include software engineering, underwater robotics, radars, AI, and armed forces training.

What you will be part

Saab is a leading defence and security company with an enduring purpose, to help nations keep their people and society safe.

Empowered by its 28,000 talented people, Saab constantly pushes the boundaries of technology to create a safer and more sustainable world.

Saab designs, manufactures and maintains advanced systems in aeronautics, weapons, command and control, sensors and underwater systems.

Saab is headquartered in Sweden. It has major operations all over the world and is part of the domestic defence capability of several nations.

The Role

This role is part of our Blue Bear business unit in Bedford.

We are seeking a UAV Design Engineer with aircraft sizing ownership, hands‑on engineering, and data‑validation experience to strengthen our early-stage design capability: turning requirements and CONOPS into sized, analysed and testable air vehicle concepts through rapid, iterative trade studies.

This role is central to our conceptual design loop, by early exploring design trade space and rapidly iterating through geometry, aerodynamics, weights, propulsion, mission and stability.

Key Responsibilities

• Perform aircraft conceptual sizing and constraint analysis to define feasible design points for new UAV concepts.
• Develop parametric air vehicle geometry and Outer Mould Line and drive it through the analysis loop, regenerating a concept from a defined parameter set.
• Produce the core conceptual outputs.
• Run trade studies and design-space exploration.
• Synthesise flight‑test and bench‑test data (flight logs, telemetry, measured aero/propulsion performance) and use it to validate, calibrate and improve conceptual models and sizing methods.
• Select and shape propulsion system concepts and integrate them into mission and energy‑network performance analysis.
• Maintain, improve and where appropriate build the concept‑design toolchain and automation that underpins rapid iteration (geometry, aero, mission, surrogate and data‑processing tools).
• Capture and communicate design risk, where the design is immature or sensitive and feed it into the programme risk register.

Qualifications and skills

• Aircraft sizing, concept-design tooling, and the synthesis of flight‑test data to improve models
• Aircraft / UAV conceptual design and sizing, constraint analysis, weight and mission/energy sizing, and closing a design point.
• Hands‑on experience with conceptual and preliminary design tools such as Open VSP, RCAIDE, AVL, XFLR5, Datcom or equivalent in‑house tools.
• Sound applied aerodynamics knowledge.
• Experience synthesising flight logs / telemetry / test data and using it to validate and improve analytical models (model calibration, correlation to test).
• Strong scripting and analysis skills in Python (or similar).
• Working understanding of the full conceptual design loop: geometry, aerodynamics, weights, propulsion, mission performance and stability & control, and how the disciplines couple.
• Strong problem‑solving skills, sound engineering judgement, and a proactive approach to improving methods and tools.
• Ability to work collaboratively across a small, multidisciplinary engineering team.
• Stability & control analysis, flight dynamics modelling, and handling‑qualities assessment.
• Experience with PX4 / Ardu Pilot, SITL/HITL simulation, and processing autopilot flight logs (ULog, MAVLink).
• CAD and geometry handling; exporting/meshing surfaces for higher‑fidelity aero (panel/CFD).
• Mid‑to high‑fidelity aero exposure (panel methods such as Flight Stream, or RANS CFD) for validating key design points.
• Experience working in safety‑critical, regulated or defence environments.
• Ability to gain SC Clearance.

Saab UK Company Benefits

• 30 days annual leave
• Workplace pension scheme with 8% company contribution
• Private medical insurance
• Death in service insurance
• Up to 5% share matching scheme
• Company enhanced Maternity/Adoption & Paternity leave.
• + Much more

By submitting an application to Saab UK you consent to undertaking workforce screening activities that may include but are not limited to: Baseline Personnel Security checks, National Security Vetting, reference checks, verification of working rights and in all circumstances preferred candidates will be placed through a security interview.

Regardless of whether you value cutting edge technology, creativity or an innovative environment, everyone at Saab contributes to keeping people and society safe.

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