Field Service Engineer in Plymouth

Location: Devonport, United Kingdom

Thales people provide armed forces customers with operational advantage at every decisive moment throughout the mission. Defence and armed forces customers rely on us to deliver the full range of defence mission systems solutions at land, sea, and air. Our platforms extend across the battlespace, including Above and Sonar, Electronic Combat, and Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance systems.

Field Services Engineer based at HMNB Devonport, the primary purpose of the Field Services Engineer is to provide technical support and assistance to the Royal Navy sonar systems. This assistance may be purely advisory, a full maintenance activity, or a mixture of both. Though primarily based at Devonport, there will be a need to travel to other RN bases across the UK, occasionally overseas, and occasional requirements to go to sea to provide support for our customer. The role is contracted for Monday to Friday business working hours, but there will often be a requirement to support outside of these hours, either in the evening or at weekends. We also envisage travel away from base approximately 30% of the time.

Key Tasks and Accountabilities:

• Maintain availability of RN sonar systems in line with contractual KPIs.
• Co‑ordinate on‑base technical investigations, liaising with external agencies and other operating bases as required.
• Assist users to achieve the highest possible reliability and performance from the system/equipment.
• Assist, when requested, with fault diagnosis to the appropriate level employing BITE, computer software confidence checks and support equipment.
• Work with the User/Maintainer to minimise wrong diagnosis and needless return of equipment/LRUs, and provide coaching as required on TUK systems.
• Work with or as the maintainer to ensure a high standard of incident/fault data is provided/recorded.
• Where required, enter incident/fault data into the maintenance management system.
• Provide assistance to local repair and/or system contractor partners.
• Generate reports as required by the project.
• Represent Thales and the allocated project with the customer/user community.
• Respond to technical queries, acting as a single point of contact for the user community.
• Log technical queries on the appropriate maintenance management system as required.
• Act as a two‑way conduit of information between the user/customer and Thales.
• Advise progress on all ongoing tasked activities to the Field Services Manager.
• Carry out technical evaluations of new instructions, publications and procedures, including tracking and recording L3 and L4 maintenance.
• Ensure that any product safety requirements are not compromised by work carried out and that all safety procedures are adhered to.
• Adhere to relevant company, health and safety procedures and maintain vigilance within the workplace to ensure that the working environment remains safe at all times.
• Be flexible so as not to compromise the customers training diary.
• Generate weekly status reports of site availability, faults, stores, maintenance and other important site issues.
• Be able to work within confined spaces.

Technical and Professional Skills:

• Strong technical background, with hands‑on experience of sonar systems and mechanical/hydraulic systems.
• It would be desirable if the candidate has previous experience working with 2087 and 2076 sonar systems.

Education and Qualifications:

• Demonstrable engineering qualifications, up to a minimum HNC level, or demonstrable equivalent experience.

This role requires a flexible approach to your place of work, with the successful candidate expected to be travelling approximately 40% of their time in support of the RN.

Security Clearance:

This role will require SC Clearance. It would be advantageous if currently held; however, if not currently held, it is a requirement that the successful applicant will undergo, achieve, and maintain SC Clearance.

At Thales we provide careers and not only jobs. With Thales employing 80,000 employees in 68 countries our mobility policy enables thousands of employees each year to develop their careers at home and abroad, in their existing areas of expertise or by branching out into new fields. Together we believe that embracing flexibility is a smarter way of working. Thales UK is committed to providing an inclusive and barrier‑free recruitment process.

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