hypersonica-prod - Hypersonica - 101 Head of Health and Safety
Requirements
• A senior HSE leader with significant experience building and running health and safety systems across complex manufacturing, engineering, R&D, test, or production environments. • Proven at establishing an HSE function or management system from the ground up, not only maintaining mature corporate processes. • Experienced operating across multiple sites with different risk profiles, priorities, and stages of maturity. • Deeply practical and comfortable spending time in workshops, laboratories, production areas, and commissioning environments rather than managing safety from a desk. • Strong working knowledge of UK health and safety requirements relevant to industrial and engineering operations, including risk assessment, machinery safety, hazardous substances, contractor control, statutory inspections, and incident management. • Credible with engineers and operational leaders, able to challenge unsafe decisions directly while finding a practical path forward. • Experienced supporting new-facility design, equipment commissioning, production readiness, or operational mobilisation. • Strong at incident investigation and root-cause analysis, with a record of converting findings into durable improvements rather than administrative closure. • Able to establish minimum credible controls for fast-moving R&D and prototype work without lowering the standard for serious risks. • Calm and decisive under pressure, with the judgement to distinguish manageable engineering risk from activity that must stop immediately. • Comfortable operating autonomously as the company’s senior UK HSE authority while building influence across teams that do not report to you. • Clear and concise in your communication, documentation, and training. You create systems people can actually understand and use. • Experience in aerospace, defence, advanced manufacturing, automotive, motorsport, energy, chemicals, or another high-consequence engineering environment is highly relevant. • Exposure to energetic materials, explosives operations, or major-hazard environments is valuable but not required; dedicated specialist capability will sit alongside this role. • Motivated by building a safety culture where standards are high, problems surface early, and safe execution increases programme velocity rather than reducing it. • Experience working with hazardous materials, explosives, energetic materials, or other major-hazard environments would be an advantage, but is not essential. • ## Security and Eligibility Requirement • Due to the nature of the work with the UK MoD, applicants must be a British Citizen, or a dual national holding British citizenship, and eligible for UK Security Clearance and, where required, Developed Vetting.
Responsibilities
• Build and lead Hypersonica’s UK health, safety, and environmental function across multiple R&D, manufacturing, assembly, test, and production sites. • Define and implement the company-wide HSE management system from zero, establishing clear standards, ownership, governance, and operating procedures without importing unnecessary bureaucracy. • Translate UK health and safety legislation into practical controls that engineers, technicians, contractors, and operators can follow in real working environments. • Embed HSE requirements into facility design, equipment selection, commissioning, manufacturing processes, and operational planning before risks become expensive or irreversible. • Lead workplace and process risk assessments across machinery, lifting operations, pressure systems, electrical work, hazardous substances, working at height, manual handling, laboratories, workshops, and production activity. • Establish safe systems of work, permit-to-work controls, contractor management, emergency arrangements, incident reporting, and corrective-action processes across all UK locations. • Build a consistent approach to machinery and equipment safety, including guarding, isolation, lockout/tagout, commissioning evidence, statutory inspection, and maintenance controls. • Own incident and near-miss investigations, identifying root causes and driving corrective actions that permanently improve how the business operates. • Define HSE requirements for new sites and facility changes, supporting design reviews, readiness gates, operational handover, and safe mobilisation. • Set the minimum credible HSE controls for prototype and R&D work, balancing experimentation speed with disciplined risk management. • Build and maintain clear HSE metrics covering incidents, near misses, corrective actions, audits, training, contractor performance, and leading risk indicators. • Develop training and competency programmes that are concise, relevant, and respected by technical teams rather than treated as compliance theatre. • Lead engagement with regulators, insurers, auditors, landlords, contractors, and external specialists where required. • Partner closely with engineering, manufacturing, facilities, quality, security, and operations leadership to surface constraints early and keep programmes moving. • Work alongside the specialist responsible for energetic materials, ensuring explosives-related controls integrate cleanly into the wider UK HSE system without duplicating accountability. • Build the future HSE team, defining which capabilities must sit internally and where specialist external support is justified.
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