Mission Safety Engineer

Salary: £62,000 up to £71,957 dependent upon experience

Contract Type: Permanent, Full-time

Security Level: SC

Location: Aviation House – Gatwick, min 2 days in the office per week or 8 days across a month.

Visa Restrictions: This position does not offer visa sponsorship

Closing Date: 7th September 2026

Interview Date: w/c 5th October 2026

We are the UK's aviation and aerospace regulator and recognised as a world leader in its field, enabling a safe and sustainable commercial space sector in the UK. 

The Role

This role is for a Flight Safety Engineer within the Engineering, Safety, and Environment team. The team provides engineering, safety, and environmental expertise to support the UK’s space regulatory functions, working closely with regulatory and policy specialists.

You will join a team of technical and safety experts supporting both launch and orbital activities, with this role focused primarily on launch, re-entry, and flight safety. As a Flight Safety Engineer, you will undertake technical assessments, quantitative safety analysis and engineering reviews to support the safety and sustainable growth of the UK space sector. 

What you’ll be doing

As a Flight Safety Engineer, you will:

• Assess licence applications, including safety cases and supporting evidence for launch, spaceport, range and orbital activities.
• Support monitoring licensees throughout the lifecycle of their activities, including carrying out on-site inspections, reviewing and analysing documents and other evidence.
• Prepare technical assessment, safety recommendations and advice to identify potential licence conditions.
• Apply modelling, simulation and quantitative analysis tools to support orbital, launch and re-entry safety analysis.
• Develop tools that support regulatory assessments and safety analysis. This may include modelling hazards such as falling debris, explosions, toxic releases, launch vehicles failures, satellite collisions or other safety-critical scenarios.
• Undertake research and development activities on topics such as space sustainability, space traffic management and launch vehicle flight safety.
• Work closely with policy and regulatory specialists translating complex engineering and safety concepts into clear and actionable advice.
• Develop and maintain knowledge of international space regulations, standards, and industry best practice.
• Contribute to development of software engineering best practices, including quality assurance, version control, issue tracking, release management and documentation.
• Participate in and contribute to technical meetings with academic collaborators, cross-government, international, industry and regulatory stakeholders, both internally and externally.

About You

Essential

• Degree level knowledge of an engineering, scientific or mathematical discipline, or equivalent professional experience in a relevant technical field.
• Demonstrable experience applying modelling, simulation, data analysis, or computational methods to solve engineering, operational, safety, or mission-related problems, including the interpretation and communication of technical results.
• Demonstrable experience in the development, quality assurance, release and use of software for the purposes of scientific, engineering or safety applications.
• Excellent programming skills in a high-level language (e.g. C/C++, Java, Fortran, Python, MATLAB or equivalent language), with evidence of developing software tools to address real world problems.
• Knowledge of the software development lifecycle, including experience of issue/task tracking, version control, continuous integration, verification and validation.
• Knowledge of statistics, probability theory and relevant numerical methods, including interpolation, integration, regression, root-finding, optimisation, linear algebra and Monte-Carlo.
• Knowledge of aerospace, spacecraft or other complex engineering systems and their associated technical, operation or safety considerations.

Desirable

The team is made of individuals with complementary skills and there is no expectation to have expertise across all of the areas listed below. Experience in one or more of the following would be advantageous:

Launch vehicle mission analysis and flight safety

• Mission analysis for launch vehicles, such as trajectory optimisation, stage impact prediction and dispersion analysis, or vehicle performance for expendable or reusable vehicles.
• Flight safety analysis for launch vehicles, such as modelling of malfunction turns, the development of flight corridors, flight safety limits, and risk mitigation measures to support safe launch operations.

Quantitative risk assessment and safety analysis

• Application of quantitative risk assessment methodologies within aerospace or another safety critical or high hazard industry.
• Consequence modelling of explosions, fires or similar techniques applied to other sectors.

Atmospheric flight and re-entry

• High-speed aerodynamics through vehicle design, analysis, or modelling activities, including a detailed understanding of the lift and drag characteristics of high-Mach-number vehicles and shock-wave theory.
• Re-entry analysis for satellites or launch vehicles, such as ablation, fragmentation, aerothermodynamics and risk posed to those on the ground.

Additional Information

For many appointments within the CAA, these roles require access to operationally sensitive infrastructure and/or Nationally Protected information. For these roles the post holders must undergo National Security Vetting and achieve the appropriate level of clearance.

To be vetted we will usually expect a reasonable period of residency in the UK so that meaningful checks can be undertaken. For this role this will need to be 5 years.

If you do not meet these requirements, we may not be able to accept your application.

For more information on CTC and SC clearance please visit - Vetting explained - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

For more information on BPSS clearance please visit - BPSS clearance

The CAA values high ethical standards and personal integrity among employees. If invited for interview you will be asked to complete a declaration of interest.

Relocation & Property

The CAA will be relocating from Aviation House (Our Gatwick Office) to new premises in a few years’ time. Our move is driven by strategic, operational and environmental considerations.

We will be moving to a new local home, up to a 15-mile radius of Aviation House, to minimise disruption for our valued colleagues and customers.

We are now working with colleagues and visitors to understand what we need in our new office, before we start our property search. We will sell Aviation House and land, vacate the site and move to new premises, but we do not expect to move before 2028

Inclusive Recruitment

We are committed to building a diverse and inclusive workforce and welcome applications from all backgrounds. As a Disability Confident employer, candidates who meet the minimum requirements will be guaranteed an interview. Find out more about the Disability Confident Scheme. If you require any adjustments during the recruitment process, please let us know.

Use of Artificial Intelligence by candidates in the CAA recruitment process

We recognise that many of our candidates find Artificial Intelligence to be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be rejected on that basis.

Working With Us

Explore What We Offer section on our careers website to find out about our benefits and how we support work-life balance.

Our Values

Do The Right Thing, Never Stop Learning, Build Collaborative Relationships, Respect Everyone – For more information please Click Here

Closing Date: 7th September 2026

Interview Date: w/c 5th October 2026

We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if we receive sufficient applications for the role. Therefore, if you are interested, please submit your application as early as possible.

No recruitment agencies please.