Manufacturing Engineer (NPI)

Job Title: Manufacturing Engineer (NPI)

Location: Rochester

Salary: £43,000 – £50,000 depending on skills and experience

What you’ll be doing:

• Working within a highly collaborative, cross‑functional team to develop and deliver advanced aerospace electronic systems, including head‑up displays (HUDs), helmet‑mounted displays, flight control computers, active inceptors/control sticks, and a wide range of commercial and military avionics
• Delivering NPI outputs in line with an Operations project plan, ensuring manufacturing readiness aligns with programme milestones from Bid and Development through Qualification and Initial Production
• Partnering closely with Engineering teams to review, challenge, and influence designs, ensuring they meet Unit Production Cost targets (UPC) and Process Failure Mode Effects Analysis (PFMEA) objectives
• Leading producibility reviews and championing Design for Manufacture (DFM) and Design for Assembly (DFA). Leveraging your own experience and that of subject matter experts to define and manage work packages that improve cost, manufacturability, and process robustness
• Supporting the development of production processes, tooling, and manufacturing instructions for new products. Providing hands‑on support during prototype builds and capturing lessons learned to drive future improvements

Your skills and experiences:

Essential:

• Degree‑level qualification or equivalent experience in an engineering discipline
• Proven application of DFX methodologies across the product development lifecycle
• Experience in creating and delivering compliant manufacturing instructions for electro‑mechanical products
• Working knowledge of 3D CAD tools (e.g. Creo, SolidWorks, CATIA)

Desirable:

• Experience of working within an EN9100‑compliant environment
• Exposure to APQP/PPAP and associated manufacturing deliverables
• Experience of supporting the introduction of new products within the aerospace sector

Benefits: 

As well as a competitive pension scheme, BAE Systems also offers employee share plans, an extensive range of flexible discounted health, wellbeing and lifestyle benefits, including a green car scheme, private health plans and shopping discounts – you may also be eligible for an annual incentive.

The NPI team:

As a Manufacturing Engineer in our NPI team, you will help transform innovative designs into cost-effective, manufacturable products. Partnering with Engineering, you’ll embed DFX and APQP principles from concept to production. This high-impact role influences early design decisions and manufacturing strategy across aerospace and maritime programmes.

Why BAE Systems?

This is a place where you’ll be able to make a real difference. You’ll be part of an inclusive culture that values diversity of thought, rewards integrity, and merit, and where you’ll be empowered to fulfil your potential. We welcome people from all backgrounds and want to make sure that our recruitment processes are as inclusive as possible. If you have a disability or health condition (for example dyslexia, autism, an anxiety disorder etc.) that may affect your performance in certain assessment types, please speak to your recruiter about potential reasonable adjustments.

Please be aware that many roles at BAE Systems are subject to both security and export control restrictions. These restrictions mean that factors such as your nationality, any nationalities you may have previously held, and your place of birth can restrict the roles you are eligible to perform within the organisation. All applicants must as a minimum achieve Baseline Personnel Security Standard. Many roles also require higher levels of National Security Vetting where applicants must typically have 5 to 10 years of continuous residency in the UK depending on the vetting level required for the role, to allow for meaningful security vetting checks.

Closing Date: 2nd March 2026

We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if we receive sufficient applications for the role. Therefore, if you are interested, please submit your application as early as possible.

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