Radar Sector Chief Systems Engineer

Salary: £67,000 - £92,000

Leonardo UK operates a grade-based salary framework with broad bands. The salary range shown reflects the approved grade band for this role, or a narrower hiring range published within that band, and is benchmarked against the external market. Exceptions above the standard range are managed through governance controls to protect internal equity.

The Radar Sector Chief Systems Engineer provides independent Systems Engineering oversight across our radar portfolio, which has global reach.

This senior role influences technical coherence, effectiveness and continuous improvements of Systems Engineering practice, while building project accountability through strong governance of project artefacts and activities, supporting and developing individual project Chief Systems Engineers.

You will ensure Radar systems are conceived, architected, integrated and verified using robust, proportionate and modern methods. Acting as the focal point for Systems Engineering strategy and governance, you will help senior leaders make better technical decisions earlier in the lifecycle.

As a member of the Systems functional team, you will work closely with Sector Chief Engineers, Project Engineering Management and People & Capability leaders to build future-ready capability, shaping technical direction, strengthening engineering confidence and improving customer outcomes across diverse Radar architectures, technologies and sensing modalities.

• Provide coaching in effective Systems Engineering practice, methods, modelling techniques and architectural thinking.
• Promote and guide the use of appropriate concept development, analysis, modelling and simulation techniques to identify risks, emergent behaviours and architectural trade-off analysis.
• Drive adoption of innovative and modern SE methods across the lifecycle, including digital engineering, model-based systems engineering and agile SE practices.
• Develop your own Radar SE specialism.

• Act as the focal point for Systems Engineering governance supporting Lifecycle Management (LCM) activities, design reviews, audits, and bid or early lifecycle technical guidance where appropriate.
• Own the sector Systems Engineering strategy, technical governance and technical authority across Leonardo’s Radar sectors.
• Identify cross-sector trends, lessons learned and opportunities to improve efficiency and quality.
• Define and maintain metrics demonstrating improvement in SE capability and outcomes across Leonardo’s Radar sectors.

• Develop and maintain the Radar Systems Engineering capability roadmap, including critical skills, emerging skills, development priorities, and sector-wide methods and systems engineering tooling.
• Strengthen collaboration across engineering disciplines.

• Act as the primary point of contact for Systems Engineering matters with sector technical leadership.
• Represent Leonardo in external Systems Engineering bodies or forums.
• Collaborate with peer Chief Systems Engineers across the UK.

The Radar Sector Chief Systems Engineer is expected to deliver and maintain:

• A clear strategy and improvement plan for the execution of Systems Engineering across Radar programmes, with systematic measurement at its core.
• A view of Systems Engineering capability, including critical skills, gaps, for both Systems Engineering methodologies and Radar domain knowledge.
• Sector guidance and practical direction on Systems Engineering process tailoring.

This senior leadership role is positioned to progress toward Programme Chief Engineer, Head of Discipline or Chief Technical Specialist roles. You will identify, mentor and develop a small group of successors.

You will benefit from supported learning and development, including transferring your skills into Leonardo’s Radar product domains.

Ideally, you will be a systems thinker with:

• A strong desire to elevate Systems Engineering skills and maturity within Radar development, bringing your skills from your domain experiences e.g. Nuclear, Process Engineering, Rail.
• A bias towards measurement and experimentation as a tool to accelerate learning.
• Experience applying Systems Engineering governance and Life Cycle Management process at sector or programme level.
• Ability to capture and interpret stakeholder expectations.
• Experience defining architectures and guiding architectural decisions.
• Proven leadership in dynamic, high-complexity environments.
• Excellent communication and credibility with engineering, leadership and customers.
• Understanding of integration challenges on long-running complex programmes.
• Determination, resilience and a drive for high-quality engineering outcomes.

This role is subject to pre-employment screening in line with the UK Government’s Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS). An additional range of Personnel Security Controls referred to as National Security Vetting (NSV) may apply, this could include meeting the eligibility requirements for The Security Check (SC) or Developed Vetting (DV). For more information and guid

ance please visit: https://careers.uk.leonardo.com/gb/en/security-and-vetting