Power Engineer/Network Innovation Lead

Overview

Role: Power Engineer / Network Innovation Lead (Principal/Associate Director Level)

Location: UK Flexible

Role ID: 2023-1732

Our vision is to create a safe and sustainable world

Ricardo plc is a global strategic, environmental, and engineering consulting company, listed on the London Stock Exchange. With over 100 years of engineering excellence and with close to 3,000 employees in more than 20 countries, we provide exceptional levels of expertise in delivering leading-edge and innovative cross-sector sustainable solutions. Every day, we enable our customers to solve the most complex and dynamic challenges to help achieve a safe and sustainable world.

Energy & Environment, one of Ricardo plc’s five operating business units, is a leader in sustainability consultancy, solving complex environmental challenges through industry-leading analysis, advice and data. With more than 40 years of heritage in addressing sustainable energy, air quality, water quality and other environmental and sustainability issues, our customers value us for our deep understanding and breadth of services covering the entire value chain from evidence, policy & strategy to implementation.

We are currently looking for an experienced electrical or power engineer at Principal Consultant or Associate Director level to join our Power Planning & Solutions team.

The team
The Power Planning & Solution team comprises over 40 engineers, economists and energy professionals who are passionate about the work we do to enable sustainable, accessible and fair energy systems fit for the future.

Most of our work focuses on the power sector, including power network innovation and smart grids, power generation and transmission planning, regulation, and policy. We also have an exciting and growing expertise in the implementation of sustainable energy solutions (renewables, batteries), and in hydrogen energy systems.

We have team members based over England and Scotland, including in offices in Guildford, London, Oxfordshire, Glasgow, and more, as well as many team members internationally.

About the role

As a consultancy, we are engaged in a wide range of projects, bidding and business development activity at any one time, meaning that this role is varied, with the opportunity to get involved, learn and lead in different areas and teams. This is a real draw to the role, and requires organisation, technical and practical experience, and interpersonal skills.

The key elements of the role include (the successful candidate does not need to have experience in all of these areas, and skills can be developed in role):

Business development activity and leadership: Alongside the leadership team, developing and implementing the networks and smart grids business development strategy including understanding the opportunities, maintaining relationships with customers, scoping projects and delivering proposals.

Technical consultancy projects: Managing and delivering consultancy projects, including working with customers and other technical experts to define success, working with the Ricardo team to deliver the projects, ensuring customer satisfaction while managing budgets and timescales.

Interfacing with other Ricardo teams: There are many exciting teams and capabilities across Ricardo, including power sector planning, renewable generation implementation, heat, sustainable transport, hydrogen, air quality and more. We are increasingly working across these teams to deliver multi-faceted projects to deliver a range of services to clients.

People and team leadership: Supporting and contributing to the culture of people development and knowledge sharing. We structure our leadership around technical leaders and people leaders, and this role is likely towould eventually include both elements.

Contribute to strategy and leadership of the business area: This is a leadership role, which includes contributing to the Power Planning and Solutions business strategy, and leading elements, particularly around networks and smart grids. This includes active business development, pipeline management, understanding and developing the team, and forming recruitment plans.

This role includes working collaboratively with a wide range of experts from across the company and in partner organisations, and be supported in your own personal and career development. There will likely be the requirement to travel to sites in the UK and overseas when required.

Examples of projects you will be working on include:

• Smart grid / network innovation projects
• Grid connection studies for renewable energy projects
• Grid code review and drafting in the UK and overseas
• Network reliability studies

Skills and experience

The successful candidate must be a capable power engineer with a track record in winning, managing and/or delivering network innovation projects and network studies.

The position would suit applicants:

• With a strong degree in power engineering or electrical engineering or equivalent
• With experience in power network projects, preferably including network innovation or smart grids
• Passionate about network innovation and smart grids, renewable energy, energy system decarbonisation and sustainability
• With the ability to manage complex projects to a successful conclusion
• With strong communication skills, including excellent writing, interpersonal and presentational skills to different audiences
• With the ability to breakdown complex research questions, think creatively and solve novel problems

Fluency in English is essential.

Working here

Ricardo is an exciting and rewarding place to work and you have the opportunity to make a difference. You will work with teams of talented, dedicated, and supportive individuals. You will have a fantastic opportunity to develop your career with us through our broad range of projects, mentoring opportunities and a personalised approach to your learning and development. We are always keen to hear from people who have driven, ambition and a flair for innovative thinking.

Wellbeing and work life balance

We offer flexible approaches to work, whether that's working from home, being in the office, or as a hybrid worker. We're happy to discuss flexible working arrangements. Wellbeing is at the core to our culture, allowing employees to flourish and to achieve their full potential. Our People are important to us, and we take pride in our wellbeing programmes and policies that support individuals including flexible working, carers policy, mental health first aiders and readily available support through our extensive Employee Assistance programme.

Diversity, Equality and Inclusion statement

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer, we believe in each person's potential, and we'll help you reach yours. We have an ambitious diversity, equality, and inclusion approach as explained here. We value diversity; recognising that a more diverse workforce creates a richer and more varied working environment. Diversity also drives innovation, by allowing us to offer our clients the best consultancy service that we can. As part of our commitment to engage positively and pro-actively with all our employees to ensure an inclusive culture, we are a recognised as a 'disability confident' employer.

Benefits

Our core benefits include 25 days' annual leave, plus 8 flexible bank holidays, a competitive company pension scheme, life assurance and professional subscriptions reimbursement. We also offer a wide range of flexible benefits to suit your lifestyle.

Once you have submitted your application a member of our Recruitment Team will be in touch. Please be aware that the timing can vary dependent on the volume of applications that we receive for each role and in some cases, we may start to review applications prior to the closing date.