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Associate Director – Fire Engineering

We are pleased to invite technical professionals with outstanding abilities in Fire Engineering to join our growing fire team!

Hybrid • Colchester • £80,000 to £120,000 depending on experience • Permanent

ABOUT THIS ROLE

There’s a reason senior fire engineers often feel stuck at larger consultancies. You get a title. You might even get a team. But the strategic conversations happen without you, and the decisions that shape how work gets done come from layers above. You end up delivering good work inside a box you didn’t choose.

We are looking for someone who does not want that box. As Associate Director you will not just lead projects, you will lead the business side of them too. You will help set strategy, weigh in on who we hire and how we develop people, and shape the kind of work we take on. You will sit alongside the Directors because your judgement is part of how we make decisions.

Come from a larger firm where the strategic conversations always happened a floor above you? CDC may be what you are looking for. Want your experience to actually shape where a practice goes? Same answer.


ABOUT CDC

Cahill Design Consultants is a privately owned, multidisciplinary engineering consultancy based in Colchester, delivering fire engineering, acoustic design and facade engineering services for over 12 years. We are 15 people and we have been deliberate about that. We are not beholden to external investors and we are not chasing growth for its own sake. The focus is on quality work and building a team that can sustain it.

We were named Best Place to Work at the 2023 CN Workforce Awards, which means more to us at this size than it would at a much larger firm. We have held Flexa Careers accreditation for three consecutive years, with an 88% employee-led score. We are ISO 9001:2015 registered and in 2025 donated 1% of turnover to charity, with 118 hours of team volunteering.


WHAT YOU WILL DO

The role splits across three broad areas: technical leadership, business development and commercial thinking, and the organisation itself.

  • Direct complex fire engineering projects from strategy through delivery, setting the approach and quality bar for multidisciplinary teams.
  • Own significant client relationships and represent CDC in high-stakes settings where fire safety knowledge and judgement drive the decisions.
  • Mentor fire engineers at all levels and genuinely influence how they grow, from early career through to senior.
  • Contribute to bids and proposals, identify new work and client opportunities, and flag commercial risks on projects early.
  • Work with the Directors on pricing, resourcing, and how we position the firm.
  • Lead recruitment and team planning, and help shape how we approach quality assurance.
  • Help shape CDC’s standards, processes and culture, with a real voice in what kind of place CDC becomes.

We encourage applications from people of all backgrounds. Requirements are split into Essential and Desirable. Apply if you meet the essential criteria, even if some desirable criteria are not yet there.


WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR

ESSENTIAL

  • Significant fire engineering consultancy experience, typically 12 or more years post-graduate, though we are interested in the depth of it as much as the count.
  • A strong track record leading complex fire engineering projects and teams.
  • Depth of knowledge across building safety regulations and both performance-based and prescriptive approaches.
  • Experience winning and holding client relationships over time.
  • Ability to mentor and develop engineers at different stages of their careers.
  • Commercial awareness: you understand project economics, resourcing decisions, and why bids win or fail.
  • Chartered Engineer status, or genuinely close to it.
  • Able to work two days per week in Colchester.

DESIRABLE

  • A track record in business development or winning new work.
  • Experience in smaller consultancy environments where people have broader influence.
  • Evidence of having helped build or change how a team or organisation operates.
  • Involvement in or exposure to building safety regulatory work.
  • Multi-sector project experience across residential, commercial, health, care and education.

BENEFITS

PAY & PENSION

  • £65,000 to £85,000 salary.
  • 5% enhanced employer pension.
  • 4× salary life assurance.
  • 70% income protection.
  • Discretionary annual bonus.

LEAVE

  • 25 days’ annual leave plus 8 bank holidays.
  • Christmas shutdown on top.
  • Buy up to 15 extra days.
  • Maximum 39 days per year.
  • TOIL / paid overtime available.

HEALTH

  • £65 per month health and wellbeing allowance.
  • 24/7 Smart Health digital GP.
  • myStrength mental health app.
  • Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) from day one.
  • Covers partner and children.

FAMILY

  • 14 weeks’ full pay for the birth parent.
  • 10 weeks’ half pay plus 15 weeks’ Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP).
  • 6 weeks’ full pay for all other parents.
  • Gender-neutral policy.
  • Adoptive and intended parents included.

DEVELOPMENT

  • Professional fees paid (IFE etc.).
  • Funded CPD plus annual training day.
  • Chartership support and coaching.

HOW WE WORK

  • 2 days per week in Colchester.
  • Flexa-accredited employer.
  • Hybrid working is the default, not the exception.

PRACTICAL

  • Cycle to Work scheme (up to £1,000).
  • Tech scheme (up to £1,000).
  • Give As You Earn.
  • ISO 9001 quality registered.

WELLBEING +

  • Legal and financial helpline.
  • Nutrition and fitness plans.
  • Second medical opinion service.
  • Long service leave from year 5.
  • Career break / sabbatical supported.

HOW TO APPLY

01 Apply – Send your CV with a brief note on why this role appeals.

02 30-minute call – A conversation for both sides to see if this makes sense.

03 Panel interview – In-person interview at our Colchester office.

We would rather have an honest conversation early than waste anyone’s time. If the application looks like a good fit, we will be in touch to arrange the call.

We welcome applications from people of all backgrounds.

Engineering and construction have a gender problem. That is not a secret. We are aware of it and we have made deliberate choices about how we hire, how we pay, and how we support people at different stages of their careers and lives.

Our enhanced parental leave policy applies equally regardless of gender or family structure, because we think that is the right thing to do, and because it is one practical way to push back against the imbalance that tends to hit hardest at the point of parenthood.

If you need any adjustments at any stage of this process, please just ask. We would rather adapt than lose a good person to an avoidable barrier.

Apply Now