Health and Safety Lead

Company

DfT Operator

Location

Leeds

Employment Hours

New Jobs

Employment Type

Contract, Contract

Salary

£60,207 - £73,124 a year

Job Highlights

Lead the continuous development and implementation of health and safety strategies, ensuring high safety performance across the organisation.
The ideal candidate will have extensive experience in health and safety management, strong leadership skills, and strategic insight.
This full-time role is based in Leeds with a competitive salary of up to £73,124 and contributes to public rail safety improvements.

Job Requirements/Description

Job Ref: DOH1270

Branch: DFT Operator

Location: London or Leeds

Salary/Benefits: Salary up to £73,124

Contract type: Fixed Term

Hours: Full Time

Hours per week: 37.5

Posted date: 24/08/2026

Closing date: 23/09/2026

About DFT Operator

Join Our Team at DFTO

DFTO is the government’s public sector rail owning group. Its purpose is to bring all currently privately-owned train operators into public ownership in advance of the creation of Great British Railways in 2027 - and deliver improvements in the here and now by unifying and integrating train operations under common public ownership.

DFTO has over 30,000 employees, runs over 8,500 services a day and delivers over 640 million customer journeys across its networks every year. 7,000 people joined the railway family in the last year

Major improvements are being delivered by DFTO train operators (TOCs) that are already under public ownership - these are LNER, Northern, TransPennine Express (TPE), Southeastern, South Western Railway (SWR), c2c, Greater Anglia and WM Trains.

We work closely with the DfT but operate independently with our own governance and leadership teams. Our priority is ensuring efficient, dependable rail services for everyone.

Primary Purpose of Job:

Lead the continuous development and implementation of DFTO’s Group Strategy to improve its health, safety performance as well as identifying and reviewing high-level group safety risks. Provide strategic health safety expertise input to prepare DFTO to be an effective part of Great British Railways, from a health safety perspective.

Key Responsibilities:

Lead the formulation, on-going development and implementation of DfTO Group’s safety strategies and plans on health and safety and supporting where appropriate, through constructive industry wide programmes.

Act an authoritative health safety specialist for DfTO on HS matters, and provide management assurance to the Group HSSS Director on the relevant legal compliance, and the extent to which the DFTO Group is managing and reducing its HS risks.

Identify and keep under review all HS risks relevant to group and the controls put in place to manage the identified risks, advising the Group HSSS Director when controls become or are likely to become ineffective.

Lead the development and implementation of clear health safety policies and standards to enable the delivery of DFTO strategic objectives.

Act as an expert across the Group, leading coordination on group health and safety improvement programmes, and where required, providing guidance and support to professionals across TOCs where required.

Co-ordinate the effective management of HS risks and arrangements across the group to achieve compliance with all HS related regulations, permits, and licences

Support the Group HSSS Director, by providing expert input and contributions,with developing the safety arrangements for Great British Railways, including supporting the development of a new health and safety management system .

Be the Designated Competent Person (DCP) for workforce accidents, including providing expert advice on accident and incident investigation tools, techniques and best practice. Direct the reporting of all accidents and incidents and implement the Fair Culture processes.

Develop and embed effective performance monitoring arrangements to enable HS performance to be understood across the groupand progress against the DFTO HS strategy and plans to be assessed.

Identify process gaps and propose and lead improvement programmeswithin DfTO system, so that efficiency and compliance are enhanced.

Contribute to, and often lead, lessons-learned reviews following incidents or near misses and so that future processes are improved.

Liaise with the Office of Road and Rail, Rail Accident Investigation Board, RSSB and other key external stakeholders on general health and safety matters, supporting engagement.

Knowledge, Skills, Experience Technical Qualifications:

Significant experience in a management role within a safety function
Experience of managing safety, and/or health issues
Significant experience in development, implementation and ownership of H management systems
Relevant qualification (e.g. NEBOSH).
Proven experience in strong management and leadership skills
Relevant experience in successful management of Health, Safety, on major programmes in the rail industry.
Membership of relevant professional body

Vacancy Details:

Duration: Fixed Term contract/secondment until October 2027
Location: Hybrid/London Waterloo Leeds
Salary: £60,207 - £73,124
Closing date: 8th June 2026

DFTO Benefits:

Annual Leave: Starting at 25 days and rising to an additional day per year of service completed within the first 5 completed years up to a maximum of 5 additional (30 days)

DC Pension Scheme: 10% Employer contribution, 5% Employee contribution

Opportunities to learn and network across the wider industry

Additional Information…

Disclaimer: Candidates applying for this position on a secondment basis must inform their line manager prior to submitting their application. This is to ensure transparency and facilitate any necessary discussions regarding workload and responsibilities.

About our people and the recruitment process - We're an inclusive employer of choice and we welcome applications from everyone! We encourage our colleagues to work flexibly, as we know traditional working patterns don't always fit. If you want to consider working flexibly, just let us know and we'll do our best to help and invest in your career with us, whilst you have a healthy work life balance.

Contact: If you have any questions or reasonable adjustments, please contact Jason.Blakemore@dftoperator.co.uk.

Please do not email any CV's to us, your application must be made by clicking the 'Apply' button.

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