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Office Location

Bristol, Derby, London, York

Role Type

Full time, Permanent

Contract Type

Hybrid - commutable to office location

Closing Date

09 April 2026

Role ID

2026-3315

Apply now online

Consulting

Senior Human Factors Consultant

Our vision is to create a safe and sustainable world.

Ricardo, member of WSP, is a global strategic, environmental, and engineering consulting company. With over 100 years of engineering excellence and employing close to 3,000 employees in more than 20 countries, we provide exceptional levels of expertise in delivering leading-edge and innovative cross-sector sustainable products and solutions. Every day, we enable our customers to solve the most complex and dynamic challenges to help achieve a safe and sustainable world.

The role

We are seeking an experienced Senior Human Factors Consultant to join our team. In this role, you will manage multiple projects, support junior colleagues, and ensure high‑quality delivery. You will lead work from bids through to completion, working closely with clients to understand objectives, build strong relationships, and manage resources, costs, and work packages.

You will deliver projects assessing human performance risks and developing human‑centred design solutions. Working with clients such as Network Rail, Hitachi, RSSB, and Transport for London, you will support major programmes across infrastructure, rolling stock, control rooms, accessibility, and digital railway technologies. Your expertise in Human Factors Integration and risk‑based analysis will guide multidisciplinary teams to ensure safety, efficiency, and accessibility.

Ricardo offers a rewarding environment where you can contribute to projects that enhance safety, performance, and sustainability across the rail industry.

Examples of our current projects include:

  • RSSB research projects such as the Development of a Control Communications maturity framework to enable railway operators to assess communications effectiveness within and beyond Control Centres.
  • Supporting the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) in reviewing accessibility and inclusive cases across the GB rail network.
  • Human Factors Integration and progressive assurance activities on major infrastructure and rolling stock programmes.
  • Supporting the design and assurance of modern control rooms and traffic management systems for automated railway operations – HS2, Metro Manila.
  • Accessibility and PRM compliance assessments for stations, depots and rolling stock.
  • ETCS and digital railway programmes, supporting safe introduction of new technologies.

Key responsibilities

  • Human Factors Integration planning
  • Management of progressive assurance activities and evidence
  • Management of Human Factors issues/risks and derived design requirements
  • Identification and application of appropriate industry standards and good practice guidance
  • Scoping and delivery of appropriate Human Factors activities and methodologies, including task analysis, human error assessment, workload assessment, workstation and interface design, alerts and alarms management

Key competencies and experience

Required

  • A relevant undergraduate or master’s degree in a subject related to Human Factors/Ergonomics, Psychology, Systems Engineering, or similar.
  • Chartered member status with the CIEHF, or evidence of equivalent experience and competencies to achieve this in the short term.
  • A genuine interest in how we optimise human performance; including evidence of modules of study covering topics such as ergonomics, human-system interface design, human performance, psychology, or similar.
  • At least five years’ experience as a Human Factors adviser to organisations operating in complex, high reliability environments; including at least two years demonstrated experience within the rail environment.
  • Strong verbal and written communication, consultation, and facilitation skills and the ability to deal effectively with people at all levels.
  • A proactive, organised approach and a commitment to producing high quality work with a high level of attention to detail.

Desirable

Some of the following would be desirable, but not essential.

  • Hierarchical Task Analysis (HTA) and other task analysis techniques.
  • Human Error Identification and Risk Assessment (e.g. SHERPA, HEART or equivalent structured approaches)
  • Workload analysis (e.g. qualitative and quantitative workload assessment techniques)
  • Anthropometric assessment and accommodation analysis.
  • Digital human modelling.
  • Sight-line and visibility assessment.
  • Human-machine interface (HMI) evaluation and design review.
  • Usability evaluation and user trials.
  • Experience in accessibility and PRM-TSI or NTSN compliance.
  • Experience in safety assurance, safety case development and CSM processes.
  • Experience in control rooms, traffic management systems, automation or high-reliability operational environments

Working here

You will be warmly welcomed into our workplace where every voice matters. We are diverse thinkers and doers, coming together to create a culture of inclusion. We will support you to find your place.

We will encourage you to use your passion and expertise to make a positive impact through the projects you work on.  Your knowledge and desire to bring about change will be invaluable in helping deliver innovative solutions that support communities across the globe in becoming safer and more sustainable.

Work life balance 

We offer flexible approaches to work, whether that is working from home, being in the office, or as a hybrid worker. We're happy to discuss flexible working arrangements. Wellbeing is at the core to our culture, allowing employees to flourish and to achieve their full potential.

Benefits

We want you to know how much you are valued. Your remuneration and benefits package will reflect that. You will receive a range of benefits which include support for your physical and mental health. 

Our core benefits include 25 days' annual leave, plus 8 flexible bank holidays, a competitive company pension scheme, life assurance and professional subscriptions reimbursement. We also offer a wide range of flexible benefits to suit your lifestyle.

Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion statement

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer, we believe in each person's potential, and we'll help you reach yours. We have an ambitious diversity, equality, and inclusion approach as explained here. We value diversity; recognising that a more diverse workforce creates a richer and more varied working environment. Diversity also drives innovation, by allowing us to offer our clients the best consultancy service that we can. As part of our commitment to engage positively and pro-actively with all our employees and to ensure an inclusive culture, we are a recognised as a 'disability confident' employer.

Next steps

Once you have submitted your application a member of our Recruitment Team will be in touch. Please be aware that the timing can vary dependent on the volume of applications that we receive for each role and in some cases, we may start to review applications prior to the closing date.

Ricardo is a Disability confident employer please advise the recruitment team via recruit@ricardo.com if you require any adjustments to support you throughout the recruitment process.