About the job

Job summary

The MOD needs an experienced aerospace design engineer to work within a small civilian design team at Royal Air Force Wittering. The work is varied, and you could find yourself working on the design of repair schemes or modifications for aircraft as diverse as the P-8A Poseidon, the Hawk Trainer, or the historic aircraft of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight.

This position is advertised at 37 hours per week. 

Job description

Our design engineers produce aircraft structural design schemes and in-service design changes (modifications) on fixed or rotary wing military aircraft. Your designs may be for the repair of metallic or composite structures, structural modifications of a minor nature or could be ad-hoc draughting tasks for support equipment. You will need to substantiate your design with supporting calculations and all work is necessarily checked for accuracy. Experienced designers who meet the essential criteria may be nominated as check signatories which attracts a market skills allowance of £3000.00. Appointment as stress note signatory or compliance verification engineer attracts a market skill allowance of £5000.00. The work requires travel to remote sites to carry out aircraft design surveys including measurements and photography, and this may require overnight stay. During your work you will liaise with aircraft delivery teams, repair teams, the additive manufacture cell, non-destructive test teams, external design organisations, manufacturers and suppliers. Depending upon experience you may need to attend mandatory training courses at various locations throughout the UK. You will work 37 hours per week as part of our flexible and hybrid working schemes. You may also be eligible to apply for compressed working hours. If you would like to find out more, please contact the Design Team Leader via the link below or go ahead and apply on the CS Jobs website.

Person specification

The ideal candidate will have experience in either a DAOS approved or EASA Part 21(J) Design Organisation but this is not essential. The required skills are as follows:

ESSENTIAL CRITERIA

1.  You will have either:

• A minimum of three years’ experience as an aerospace design engineer in aircraft structural repair, modification or stress analysis with the necessary computer aided design skills or;
• A minimum of three years’ experience in aircraft repair or modification installation with the necessary computer aided design skills or;
  
  
• Be an aerospace graduate engineer with experience in aerospace repair or structural modification design or aircraft stress analysis with the necessary computer aided design skills.
  
  
• Candidates with less than 3 years aerospace design experience combined with other engineering design experience, along with strong transferable skills such as extensive experience in CAD systems such as Autodesk Inventor, stress analysis, finite element analysis or design for additive manufacture will be considered.

2. Experience of Computer Aided Design (CAD) systems such as AutoCAD and Autodesk Inventor with the ability to produce detail drawings to meet the requirements of BS 8888. Experience will be verified by CAD assessment following the interview.

3.  An understanding of aircraft structural loads, materials and structural failure.

DESIRABLE CRITERIA (Not Essential)

1. Experience of aircraft stress analysis in relation to aircraft structural repairs or modifications.

2. Experience of aircraft composite repair design.

3. Experience in the use of 3D scanning software and printing.

4. An understanding of military and civil airworthiness requirements.

5. Understanding of aircraft document set and air system document set

6. Experience of finite element analysis tools such as FEMAP or Nastran/Patran.

7. Microsoft office skills.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £35,290, Ministry of Defence contributes £9,528 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

Things you need to know

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Experience and Technical skills.

Candidates will be required to provide CV details to include job history; qualification details and previous skills and experience.  

Candidates will be required to provide a statement of suitability.

1. Online Verbal Reasoning Test .

2. Online Numerical Reasoning Test.

3. Application.

3. On-line sift.

4. Interview and CAD test. The CAD test is used to verify the candidates experience of part modelling, assembly and extracting 2 drawings in Autodesk Inventor.

The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equality of opportunity. There is a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria. If you need to advise us that you need additional help or reasonable adjustments for the recruitment process, please contact: DBSCivPers-Resourcingteam3@mod.gov.uk  

As a result of the changes to the UK immigration rules which came into effect on 1 January 2021, the Ministry of Defence will only offer sponsorship for a skilled worker visa under the points based system, where a role has been deemed to be business critical.  

The role currently being advertised has not been assessed as business critical and is therefore NOT open to applications from those who will require sponsorship under the points based system. Should you apply for this role and be found to require sponsorship, your application will be rejected and any provisional offer of employment withdrawn. 

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check. Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window).

See our vetting charter (opens in a new window). People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window). The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria. The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.