Job summary
The Principal Mechanical Engineer will provide professional leadership and assurance for the Trust's mechanical engineering systems, ensuring they are safe, reliable, compliant, and fit for purpose in a healthcare environment.
The role exists to safeguard patient and staff wellbeing by overseeing statutory compliance, risk management, and technical standards across all mechanical assets, including ventilation, medical gases, pressure systems, water safety, boilers, and energy systems.
Acting as a senior technical authority, the post-holder will support the Head of Compliance and Assurance in delivering a robust estates compliance framework, drive continuous improvement in system performance, and contribute to the Trust's strategic objectives in sustainability, energy efficiency, and service resilience.
Main duties of the job
Key Responsibilities
- Deputise for the Head of Assurance, overseeing compliance across PAM, audits, risk assessments and safety groups, ensuring action plans and estates risks are monitored and updated.
- Manage the estates policy library, assurance training matrix and asbestos risk register, and coordinate statutory maintenance and PPM scheduling in line with SFG20.
- Build strong working relationships with stakeholders, producing performance and compliance reports, including for the Hospital Infection Control Committee.
- Liaise with Estates teams to ensure maintenance aligns with SFG20, escalate end-of-life assets for capital replacement, and travel to Trust sites to assess requirements and arrange inspections.
- Participate in safety group meetings, support out-of-hours engineering activities, and provide technical advice to capital project managers.
- Witness and sign off works in line with HTM/HBN guidance, supervise mechanical works and contractors, and maintain AP competence through ongoing training.
- Ensure compliance with all HTMs, HBNs, SFG20, British Standards, PAM and statutory health & safety requirements, including testing programmes and Trust duties relating to infection control, safeguarding, equality, and information governance.
About us
Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust is committed to being an inclusive and disability confident employer and has been awarded the Gold for the Armed Forces Employment Recognition Scheme. We provide first class development opportunities for all staff and have a wide range of professional, management and leadership, and clinical skills training available.
Here at Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust, we know how important it is to have a healthy work life balance; this benefits not only individuals but the patients we care for too.
We encourage applications from people who wish to work on a flexible basis, recognising that flexibility may mean a range of different working patterns and hours, we do our utmost to work with our staff to meet their needs and the needs of our service and its users.
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Job description
Job responsibilities
A detailed and comprehensive version of the job description and main responsibilities can be found in the attached JD and person specification.
Job description
Job responsibilities
A detailed and comprehensive version of the job description and main responsibilities can be found in the attached JD and person specification.
Person Specification
Qualifications
Essential
- Undergraduate degree in engineering.
- Postgraduate master's degree in relevant engineering discipline or demonstrate working towards master's level qualification
- Chartered professional registration with the engineering council, or equivalent IEng + experience.
- Authorised Person/ Responsible Person training/qualifications.
- Evidence of CPD
Desirable
- H&S qualification, NEBOSH Diploma, IOSH.
- Asbestos awareness.
- Medical Gas Authorised Person qualification.
Experience
Essential
- Proven experience of working in a management/leadership role to include staff management.
- Experience of working within the NHS or similar public sector organisation.
- Budget management
- Significant experience of managing and monitoring the compliance aspects of FM services.
- Previous experience in creating and maintaining MS Word documents, Excel spread sheets, cloud hosted databases.
Desirable
- Experience of using Healthroster.
- Experience of using EPROC
Skills
Essential
- Excellent communication skills
- Strong presentation skills.
- Enhanced problem-solving skills and the ability to respond under sudden unexpected demands.
- Strong time management and organisational skills
- Working knowledge of financial processes.
- Good knowledge of NHS standards, including Health Building Notes and Health Technical Memorandums
- Full understanding of the importance of Method statements and Risk assessments and the 'Permit to Work' system
- Skills in data collation or analysis
- Advanced problem solving.
Desirable
- Knowledge of mechanical systems.
- Familiarity with asset tracking and maintenance scheduling
- Project management experience - especially in capital works, refurbishment, or compliance improvement programmes
Person Specification
Qualifications
Essential
- Undergraduate degree in engineering.
- Postgraduate master's degree in relevant engineering discipline or demonstrate working towards master's level qualification
- Chartered professional registration with the engineering council, or equivalent IEng + experience.
- Authorised Person/ Responsible Person training/qualifications.
- Evidence of CPD
Desirable
- H&S qualification, NEBOSH Diploma, IOSH.
- Asbestos awareness.
- Medical Gas Authorised Person qualification.
Experience
Essential
- Proven experience of working in a management/leadership role to include staff management.
- Experience of working within the NHS or similar public sector organisation.
- Budget management
- Significant experience of managing and monitoring the compliance aspects of FM services.
- Previous experience in creating and maintaining MS Word documents, Excel spread sheets, cloud hosted databases.
Desirable
- Experience of using Healthroster.
- Experience of using EPROC
Skills
Essential
- Excellent communication skills
- Strong presentation skills.
- Enhanced problem-solving skills and the ability to respond under sudden unexpected demands.
- Strong time management and organisational skills
- Working knowledge of financial processes.
- Good knowledge of NHS standards, including Health Building Notes and Health Technical Memorandums
- Full understanding of the importance of Method statements and Risk assessments and the 'Permit to Work' system
- Skills in data collation or analysis
- Advanced problem solving.
Desirable
- Knowledge of mechanical systems.
- Familiarity with asset tracking and maintenance scheduling
- Project management experience - especially in capital works, refurbishment, or compliance improvement programmes
Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.
Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).
From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).
Additional information
Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.
Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).
From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).
