Chief Engineer & Technical Officer

Lead the future of engineering and infrastructure across an integrated railway. This is a significant executive leadership opportunity at a pivotal moment for the industry on the largest railway in the UK which has an unequalled growth agenda. You will have one million reasons to deliver outstanding outcomes, because that is how many customers we carry on our busiest days. As Chief Engineer and Technical Director/Officer, you will lead the engineering, fleet, asset management, maintenance, renewals, and infrastructure agenda across our integrated business, bringing together track and train to deliver a safer, more reliable and better-performing railway for our customers. Reporting directly to the Managing Director and operating as a member of the Executive Leadership Team, you will provide professional engineering and asset management leadership across the organisation. You will be accountable for ensuring our fleet and infrastructure assets are safe, sustainable, and capable supporting both today's operational railway and its future development. Working across GTR and Network Rail, you will help shape a genuinely integrated approach to engineering and asset management, improving performance, making better whole-system decisions, and preparing the organisation for the transition towards Great British Railways. What You'll Be Doing This is a broad and highly influential role, combining executive leadership with professional engineering accountability and the delivery of complex engineering and asset strategies. You Will - Set and lead the integrated engineering, maintenance, renewals, and enhancements strategy, working across GTR and Network Rail to optimise outcomes across track and train. - Provide executive leadership for Fleet Engineering, Asset Management, and Infrastructure, ensuring plans support safety, operational performance, customer outcomes, and long-term business objectives. - Influence assets plans and delivery in other Integrated Business Units to ensure the best outcomes for customers - Provide Level 1 assurance for asset safety, integrity and sustainability, maintaining strong engineering governance and technical compliance. - Lead the planning and delivery of day-to-day maintenance and overhaul activity across railway infrastructure and fleet. - Co-ordinate medium and long-term asset management planning, ensuring investment and renewals decisions reflect future operational requirements. - Lead and inspire teams to put safety first, promoting engineering excellence and strong environmental performance across all areas of responsibility. - Drive improvements in fleet availability, maintenance, operational performance, and train presentation, ensuring the railway delivers consistently for its customers. - Lead major fleet and engineering programmes, including refurbishment, maintenance arrangements and the introduction of new products and technology. - Work closely with GTR Renewals Enterprise to ensure renewals are delivered against the integrated business strategy and agreed targets. - Develop innovative approaches to engineering and asset management, identifying opportunities to improve performance, efficiency, and value. - Build strong relationships with customers, regulators, suppliers, industry partners, and senior leaders across GTR and Network Rail. - Lead continuous improvement across the directorate, embedding learning from incidents and developments across the wider industry. - Develop engineering capability across the organisation and lead the transformation of engineering and infrastructure management in readiness for the future railway. About You We are looking for an accomplished engineering and asset leader who has operated at significant scale within a complex, safety-critical, and highly regulated environment. You will bring substantial senior leadership experience across engineering, fleet, asset management, maintenance, renewals, or infrastructure, together with the professional credibility to provide assurance and leadership on complex engineering matters. You Will Also Bring - Chartered Engineer (CEng) status or equivalent professional experience. - Significant experience leading large engineering, fleet, maintenance, renewals, or infrastructure organisations. - Strong knowledge of asset management, engineering assurance, maintenance delivery, infrastructure performance - Experience successfully delivering major engineering, fleet, maintenance, renewals, or enhancement programmes. - Deep understanding of safety management, risk, change management and regulatory compliance within a highly regulated environment. - A strong track record of leading, developing, and inspiring large, multidisciplinary teams through organisational and cultural change. - The ability to influence and support strategic decision-making at Executive level. - Excellent stakeholder management, negotiation, and communication skills, with credibility across regulators, suppliers, industry partners, and senior leaders. - Strong commercial judgement and experience managing budgets, contracts, and supplier relationships. - Experience within rail would be highly advantageous, as would experience working within an integrated, partnership or complex matrix environment. The opportunity Bringing track and train closer together enables us to manage the railway differently, looking beyond organisational boundaries and focusing on the performance of the whole system. As Chief Engineer and Technical Director/Officer, you will have a central role in making that ambition real: bringing together fleet and infrastructure thinking, strengthening engineering assurance, improving reliability, and creating an asset strategy capable of supporting the railway of the future. You will join an Executive Leadership Team with the opportunity to influence not only how our railway performs today, but how engineering and asset management evolve as the industry moves towards greater integration and Great British Railways. If you are an exceptional asset leader who can combine professional authority with collaborative executive leadership and a focus on safety, performance, and customers, we would like to hear from you.