NATS is the UK's leading air navigation service provider, handling over 2.4 million flights each year. We provide air traffic control services from two control centres and at airports around the UK. We also provide a wide range of commercial products and solutions internationally. Our people are at the heart of our purpose to advance aviation and keep the skies safe.
Salary: £62,278.99 - £83,038.65
Closing Date: 14/04/2026
Please Include a Cover Letter with your application.
Purpose of the Job
Lead the technical delivery of one or multiple work packages for Critical National Infrastructure in the Air Traffic Management domain. This encompasses a range of technologies, software applications, and hardware infrastructure used for managing and controlling air traffic, utilising advanced technologies such as virtualised platforms, machine learning, and Artificial Intelligence. These systems handle tasks such as flight planning, communication, surveillance, navigation, managing Unmanned Air Systems, and weather information dissemination. Co-ordinate the technical alignment and resource management for several work packages.
Principal Accountabilities
- Apply systems engineering principles to define, plan and deliver the scope of activities within one or multiple work packages of a project, to achieve the required outcomes.
- Accountable for the quality and alignment of the outputs of assigned work packages.
- Technical point of contact for internal and external stakeholders.
- Accountable to the senior engineering lead for the technical delivery of the work packages managed by the job holder and the work packages within their project(s).
Dimensions
The job holder will lead the delivery of a combined volume of work packages of up to 10 FTEs pa (equivalent to up to £1m pa of internal labour) plus technical management of up to £0.5m of external capital spend. Note that the figures above are per annum – over the duration of a Regulatory Period (5 years), this role has indirect control of project spend typically in the region of up to £10m.
Autonomy
- The job holder will tailor and agree delivery processes to suit the complexity of the scope of work.
- The job holder will challenge technical delivery plans for the scope of work to ensure that they are following agreed policies and processes.
- Provide assurance of the content of plans and work packages to project and programme managers and business stakeholders.
Job Scope
- Responsible for managing and executing the scope of work, defining the activities for one or multiple work packages, which could constitute a project.
- Ensure that the collection of work packages delivers a complete, coherent, sustainable and cost-effective solution to meet all stakeholder requirements.
- Engage with resource managers to secure, and ensure early deconfliction of, the resources required to deliver the scope of work.
- Deliver the activities defined in the work package(s) to cost, quality and timescale targets, while collaborating across multiple delivery functions and subject matter experts (e.g. Safety, Supply Chain).
- Can build, own and update technical delivery plans while providing challenge and recommendations that allow for an effective and achievable plan to be deliverable, managing dependencies throughout, and identifying the resources required to deliver the plan.
- Ensure appropriate technical governance is tailored, applied and adhered to for the scope of work.
- Follow best practice within the NATS' safety and service principles, adhering to engineering ethics.
- Provide task management and direction to a team of engineers and subject matter experts; problem solve challenges that arise both within their scope of work and wider using prior experiences and networking to lead problems to a resolution.
- Work with 3rd Party suppliers to manage the execution of out-sourced activities to the agreed plan, pro-actively managing emerging risks.
- Identify "business as usual" activities from the project that require definition and handover to service operational teams.
- Provide concise and regular updates on the scope of work to management through effective, tailored and confident communication methods.
- Advocate of the NATS behaviours.
Experience, Qualification & Skills
- HNC (or equivalent RQF level 4 or SCQF level 7 qualification) in an Engineering or Technology discipline.
- Have experience of managing the technical delivery of a project, or multiple work packages, following industry best practice techniques (preferably in a safety-related sector).
- Applicants not holding the expected qualification but who have undertaken relevant lower-level qualifications/certifications in similar fields and have demonstrable skills and capabilities gained through relevant experience in an engineering management role (preferably in a safety related sector) will be considered.
- Enthusiastic, flexible and a responsive person with the ability to plan and organise.
- Track Record in making key decisions with suitable supervision.
- Able to work under pressure without impacting quality of outcomes.
- Confidence to challenge peers and senior colleagues through constructive approaches, providing recommendations. Proven record of identity solutions that focus on delivering pragmatic approaches, challenging the status quo where applicable, appreciating and able to balance cost, quality, and time.
- Can communicate with a variety of stakeholders ranging from technical members of the team to senior business stakeholders.
- Can translate engineering issues into plain English.
- Appreciation and understanding for other departments' needs and supports them to achieve the desired outcomes. Demonstrable ability to resolve conflicts within teams and to build positive relationships with stakeholders.
- Has shown initiative and experience to proactively identify potential issues before they occur and being prepared with answers to any key stakeholder questions.
- Experience of task management of multidisciplinary teams located across multiple sites; including integrated teams comprising permanent staff, temporary contractors and 3rd party suppliers, though effective delegation and prioritisation.
Additional Vacancy Information
We are proud to offer a fantastic total reward package to help you thrive both personally and professionally - for more information on what NATS can offer you please visit - Why NATS?
We have adopted agile working to provide greater flexibility and increased choice over working arrangements, with the opportunity for this role to work in our modern office facilities as well as remotely. We also welcome discussions on flexible and part-time working arrangements. Find out more here.
If you share our passion to advance aviation and keep the skies safe - we would like to hear from you whatever your age, sex, race, faith, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, visible or invisible disability. Individuals that bring different perspectives, skills, life experiences and backgrounds help us be at the forefront of our industry.
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