About the Trust
We're one of the UK’s biggest charities and we care for 2,000 miles of canals, rivers, docks and reservoirs because we believe life is better by water. We're looking for people who support our cause and want to make a difference for future generations. Could this be you?
Along with our waterways we also manage museums, archives and the country's third largest collection of historic buildings, as well as the nature and wildlife that calls our canals home. All of this enables us to provide wellbeing opportunities for millions of people each year.
Join Our Team: Senior Mechanical & Electrical Engineer, Electrical bias opportunity
Location: Wales & South West / London & South West
Navigate your future and lock in your career as we keep our canals open and alive.
The M&E maintenance and inspection team is responsible for keeping critical assets safe, compliant, and fully operational across the waterways. They carry out regular inspections, deliver planned preventative maintenance, and respond quickly to faults to minimise disruption. Using data and technical expertise, they assess asset condition and risk, ensuring work is prioritised effectively and meets all safety and regulatory standards. Their work supports long-term investment decisions and ensures key infrastructure, such as locks, bridges, and water control systems, remains reliable, keeping the network open and safe for users.
As a Senior M&E Engineer, you will lead a small team, providing technical expertise to manage significant infrastructure risk across the Trust’s assets. You will play a key role in assessing, maintaining, and prioritising M&E systems, as well as developing and delivering engineering solutions to support the Trust’s MEICA infrastructure. This role requires an experienced engineer with strong knowledge of waterway M&E assets and the ability to drive safe, effective, and sustainable outcomes.
Working Hours & Travel
Although this is a home-based role, there is a requirement to travel across our Wales & South West and London & South East regions to both manage our M&E assets and teams. Our hub spaces for collaborative meetings are located at - London Docklands, Little Venice, Leighton Buzzard, Sharpness, & Gloucester. Currently this is forecasted to be 1 - 2 days per week for site visits/meetings, with occasional overnight stays.
This role is great for someone who enjoys variety, splitting time between home, our Trust Hubs and regular site visits, and who’s happy to work flexibly when needed, including the occasional early start, late finish or weekend.
Core hours: 37 hours, 5 days a week, work pattern.
You should be able to reasonably commute to one of the following hubs: Gloucester, London Docklands (E14 9ST), Little Venice, Leighton Buzzard.
Role Overview
Step into a key role shaping the Trust’s MEICA projects. As our Senior Electrical Engineer, you’ll lead the electrical delivery of priority projects, ensuring safe, reliable and sustainable engineering solutions. You’ll act as the go to electrical specialist within multidisciplinary teams - reviewing designs, producing technical documentation and guiding colleagues with expert advice. Working alongside the Principal MEICA Engineer, you’ll help drive our project plan forward while championing our values and embedding inclusion across everything you deliver.
Key Responsibilities
- Line management of M&E Supervisors, driving engagement, motivation, performance, and development across the team. Provide support through the Trust’s performance excellence framework, including setting clear objectives and coaching team members to maintain required technical skills and competencies.
- Provide expert advice on MEICA engineering issues across the Trust, supporting informed decision-making at all levels.
- Develop and support MEICA inspection and maintenance programmes, delivered by contractors and internal teams, ensuring inspection outcomes are accurately recorded in SAP.
- Use maintenance outputs to prioritise major repairs, upgrades, and new installations, ensuring works are clearly defined and aligned to agreed strategies and standards.
- Manage and maintain high-quality MEICA asset data across SAP, GIS, and other operational systems, ensuring timely and accurate input and analysis.
- Assess inspection data and make risk-based recommendations on work prioritisation, balancing cost, time, resources, heritage, environmental, and safety considerations.
- Ensure compliance with M&E safety procedures within the area of responsibility, acting as Senior Authorised Person where required.
- Develop technical specifications and work briefs, ensuring timely delivery to programme, and provide technical oversight to ensure efficient and effective MEICA project delivery.
- Provide clear, evidence-based recommendations to senior managers and colleagues, using professional expertise to guide decisions.
- Contribute to operational efficiency by aligning work with agreed plans and strategies.
- Respond to internal and external enquiries relating to MEICA assets, using relevant information sources to provide accurate and timely responses.
- Demonstrate organisational values and behaviours at all times, promoting diversity and inclusion by challenging practices that do not align with organisational policies and standards.
About You
A qualified Electrical or Mechanical Engineer, Chartered or Incorporated (or working towards), with a strong technical background and substantial experience delivering complex M&E engineering activities. Brings proven expertise in inspection, maintenance, and infrastructure risk assessment, alongside a solid understanding of health and safety, governance, and compliance frameworks.
Confident communicating technical information to a range of audiences, combining analytical thinking with practical delivery. Also an effective leader with experience managing and developing teams, working collaboratively across functions, and balancing wider business priorities to achieve safe, high-quality outcomes.
Skills & Qualifications
Technical Skills
- Chartered or Incorporated Electrical or Mechanical Engineer (or equivalent), with membership of a relevant professional body (e.g. IET, IMechE)
- Degree or HND in Electrical or Mechanical Engineering (or similar technical discipline).
- Substantial post-incorporation experience delivering complex M&E engineering activities.
- Proven experience inspecting and delivering M&E engineering works.
- Experience assessing M&E infrastructure risk.
- Good understanding of health and safety requirements.
- Awareness of governance, financial controls, and compliance systems.
- Evidence of Continuous Professional Development.
- Ability to communicate technical information clearly, including presenting data to non-technical audiences.
General Skills
- Experience line managing a range of M&E staff, including supervisors, technicians, and operatives.
- Ability to support wider business priorities, negotiating resources as needed.
- Strong collaboration skills, working across teams effectively.
- Encourages and demonstrates organisational values and behaviours in day-to-day work.
Contact & Application
If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us at
[email protected]. We encourage early applications as we may close the vacancy once we receive enough suitable candidates.
What We Offer
In addition to your annual base salary of £45,000 - £51,000, we also offer Car Cash Allowance (£425 per month), a competitive pension scheme, increasing holiday entitlement, and a range of employee benefits.
For a full breakdown of our benefits, check out our brochure here: EVP - 1.
Learn more: https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/about-us/work-for-us/our-benefits
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Our values
We care passionately for our waterways, and as importantly, for those who look after and use them. We are committed to building a diverse and inclusive workforce where everyone can thrive. We are striving to represent the diverse communities that we are a part of and welcome applicants from across all sectors of the community.
We want everyone to have the opportunity to perform at their best during our recruitment process. If you require any reasonable adjustments - whether for a disability, neurodiversity, or health condition - please let us know what you need and how we can support you. We’ll work with you to make any necessary changes.
All of our jobs can be considered on a part time, flexible or job share basis.
We operate a Guaranteed Interview Scheme for disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria for the role. You are considered disabled under the Equality Act 2010 if you have a physical or mental impairment that has a substantial and long-term negative effect on your ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities. We recognise not everyone who is classified as disabled under the Equality Act personally identifies this way, or with this definition of disability. Please do not let this discourage you from applying under the scheme.
At Canal & River Trust, we are committed to fair, transparent, and ethical recruitment practices. As part of our hiring process, we may use AI to analyse applications and support us work more efficiently. However, all hiring decisions – without exception - are made by our hiring managers.
Navigate your future and lock in your career as we keep our canals open and alive.
Find out more about us on our website: https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/about-us
