Principal ICA and Functional Safety Eng

Are you ready to make a real impact on the future of water engineering? Join Thames Water's Asset Engineering team as a Control & Instrumentation (C&I) Functional Safety Engineer and play a key role in delivering our ambitious AMP8/5-year plan and beyond. You'll help shape the future of functional safety and technical standards, ensuring our assets are safe, compliant, and resilient for years to come.

What you'll be doing as a C&I Functional Safety Engineer

As a C&I Functional Safety Engineer, you'll be responsible for:

• Driving the advancement of the Functional Safety Engineering discipline and contributing to Technical Asset Standards.
• Ensuring the right technical requirements are captured in Project Technical Briefs.
• Leading Functional Safety SIL determination exercises and LOPA studies, specifying robust technical designs to manage risk.
• Understanding and applying safety critical task analysis and process hazards analysis (SCTA/PHA).
• Delivering engineering regulatory compliance for control and instrument assets.
• Producing and reviewing C&I designs, and supervising design partner works for compliance with Thames Water standards and industry best practice.
• Supporting the £300M AMP8 control and instrument obsolescence upgrade programme.
• Providing technical sign-off and assurance during project delivery and handover.
• Offering technical guidance to projects and operations on all C&I issues.
• Undertaking Function Safety Assessments

Base location: Clearwater Court, Reading

Working pattern or hours: 36 hours a week on a hybrid contract with a mix of office & home working.

To thrive in this role, the essential criteria you'll need is:

• Recognised technical leader in control and instrument engineering, with extensive post-graduate experience.
• Experience in safety-related control and instrument design and safety instrumented systems, ideally within the water or energy sector.
• Project delivery experience across the full lifecycle.
• Understanding of the regulatory environment and engineering compliance.
• Ability to collaborate and influence senior colleagues.
• Degree (or equivalent) in Engineering and professional chartership.
• TUV Functional Safety Engineer qualification (or equivalent, e.g. CFSE, CFSP) with practical experience on SIL-rated systems.
• Skilled facilitator of qualitative and quantitative risk assessments (e.g. HAZOP, FMEA, SIL, BowTie, LOPA).

Additional skills and experiences would be great to have:

• Experience hosting Failure Mode Effects Analysis workshops.
• Knowledge of safety shutdown systems on service reservoirs and clean water production.
• Experience specifying operation and maintenance regimes for safety critical elements.

What's in it for you?

• Competitive salary from £82,500 to £95,000 per annum.
• 26 days holiday per year (increasing with service) plus bank holidays.
• Car allowance
• Performance-related pay plan directly linked to company performance measures and targets.
• Generous Pension Scheme through AON.
• Access to lots of benefits to help you take care of you and your family's health and wellbeing, and your finances – from annual health MOTs and access to physiotherapy and counselling, to Cycle to Work schemes, shopping vouchers and life assurance.

Find out more about our benefits and perks

Who are we?

We're the UK's largest water and wastewater company, with more than 16 million customers relying on us every day to supply water for their taps and toilets. We want to build a better future for all, helping our customers, communities, people, and the planet to thrive. It's a big job and we've got a long way to go, so we need help from passionate and skilled people, committed to making a difference and getting us to where we want to be in the years and decades to come.

Learn more about our purpose and values

Working at Thames Water

Thames Water is a unique, rewarding, and diverse place to work, where every day you can make a difference, yet no day is the same. As part of our family, you'll enjoy meaningful career opportunities, flexible working arrangements and excellent benefits.

If you're looking for a sustainable and successful career where you can make a daily difference to millions of people's lives while helping to protect the world of water for future generations, we'll be here to support you every step of the way. Together, we can build a better future for our customers, our region, and our planet.

Real purpose, real support, real opportunities. Come and join the Thames Water family. Why choose us? Learn more.

We're committed to being a great, diverse, and inclusive place to work. We welcome applications from everyone and want to ensure you feel supported throughout the recruitment process. If you need any adjustments, whether that's extra time, accessible formats, or anything else just let us know, we're here to help and support.

When a crisis happens, we all rally around to support our customers. As part of Team Thames, you'll have the opportunity to sign up to support our customers on the frontline as an ambassador. Full training will be given for what is undoubtedly an incredibly rewarding experience. It's also a great opportunity to learn more about our business and meet colleagues.

Disclaimer: due to the high volume of applications we receive, we may close the advert earlier than the advertised date, so we encourage you to apply as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.