Location
Newcastle upon Tyne

Hours
Full Time

Salary
Negotiable

About the Role
What if you could do the kind of work the world needs? At WSP, you can access our global scale, contribute to landmark projects and connect with the brightest minds in your field to do the best work of your life. You can embrace your curiosity in a culture that celebrates new ideas and diverse perspectives. You can experience a world of opportunity and the chance to shape a career as unique as you.

We are seeking a Design Safety Compliance Lead / Principal Designer Representative (PD Rep) to join our growing team, supporting the safe and successful delivery of major power, electricity transmission and distribution, low carbon and renewables, and wider energy infrastructure projects across the UK. This role combines technical health and safety expertise with client-facing advisory responsibilities, helping clients and project teams embed effective risk management and safe-by-design principles at the earliest stages of project development.

You will play a key role supporting major infrastructure clients, including transmission owners, developers, and network operators such as National Grid and Distribution Network Operators (DNOs). Acting as a Principal Designer Representative, you will influence design decisions, coordinate design risk management activities, facilitate collaboration across multidisciplinary teams, and help clients achieve safer, more efficient project outcomes throughout the project lifecycle.

As a Health, Safety & Design Risk Consultant, you will operate across a diverse portfolio of infrastructure and energy projects, with a strong focus on design-stage risk management, stakeholder engagement, and project assurance. Working alongside designers, engineers, and project managers, you will:
- Ensure health, safety, and constructability considerations are integrated into project development from the outset
- Support clients in implementing effective design risk management and governance arrangements
- Influence project outcomes by balancing safety, risk, delivery, operational, and commercial considerations
- Promote collaborative approaches to hazard elimination and risk reduction across multidisciplinary teams

As a Principal Designer Representative, you will:
- Lead and coordinate design risk management activities during project development
- Facilitate Safety in Design reviews, hazard identification workshops, and multidisciplinary risk assessments
- Promote the elimination of hazards through design and ensure risks are reduced as far as reasonably practicable
- Coordinate communication between designers, clients, contractors, and key stakeholders on significant project risks
- Challenge design assumptions and encourage innovative solutions that improve safety, constructability, operability, maintainability, and sustainability
- Provide assurance that design risk management processes are being effectively implemented across project teams
- Support the development and maintenance of project risk registers and design decision records
- Monitor the close-out of actions arising from design reviews and risk workshops
- Support the collation of information required for future operation, maintenance, modification, and decommissioning of assets
- Act as a trusted adviser to clients on design risk management and industry best practice
- Ensure PCI, H&S Files and CDM Summary Logs are in place and handovers to the Principal Contractor Design Risk Management Lead
- Facilitate Safety in Design reviews and workshops
- Coordinate multidisciplinary identification of hazards and significant risks
- Ensure opportunities for hazard elimination are actively explored and documented
- Review residual risks and ensure these are clearly communicated to relevant stakeholders
- Promote best practice in Safety in Design and risk-led decision making across project teams

Project Oversight & Assurance:
- Undertake project reviews, audits, workshops, and site visits to monitor implementation of design risk management processes
- Review project documentation, risk registers, design assumptions, and key design decisions
- Support lessons learned activities and continuous improvement initiatives
- Provide independent challenge and assurance on project safety performance during design development

Stakeholder Engagement & Influence:
- Build strong relationships with clients, designers, project managers, and contractors
- Facilitate workshops, briefings, and collaborative reviews
- Provide clear, practical, and proportionate advice aligned with project objectives and delivery requirements
- Influence project teams to adopt best practice approaches to Safety in Design and risk management

Experience
- Acting as a Principal Designer Representative, Design Safety Professional, Design Risk Manager, or Health & Safety Advisor within infrastructure projects
- Strong understanding of Safety in Design principles and design risk management processes
- Experience facilitating workshops, leading design reviews, and engaging with multidisciplinary engineering teams
- Strong stakeholder management and influencing skills
- Commercial awareness and the ability to balance risk reduction with project delivery requirements
- Experience within the power, utilities, transmission, distribution, energy, transportation, or major infrastructure sectors
- Ability to challenge constructively and drive improvements in project safety outcomes

About you
- Confident communicator with the ability to build strong relationships across diverse teams
- Proactive and collaborative approach to problem solving and risk management
- Committed to promoting safety, sustainability, and innovation in design and project delivery
- Adaptable and able to work effectively in a dynamic project environment

Qualifications
Relevant health, safety, or design risk management qualifications are desirable but not explicitly stated. A willingness to learn and develop within the role is encouraged.