Summer Placement - Fire Engineering
From helping shape entire cities to adapting infrastructure to deal with the climate emergency, a career at Buro Happold presents the chance to make a difference. With a world class reputation, our creativity and our people have delivered positive change to clients, the environment, and communities alike. If you want to be part of something bigger, this is your chance. We are open for successful candidates to be based in our London office.
What is Fire Engineering?
Every building presents unique fire safety challenges. To fully address life safety and design aspirations, your scheme needs a unique, holistic, creative approach to developing a simple, yet robust, fire safety solution.
Our involvement on projects spans from concept to completion, and further, to occupation and continued operational management. Our clients find this level of continued engagement reassuring as we guide them through the life cycle of the building.
For multiple building portfolio clients such as The National Museums of Scotland and University College London, we provide a complete consultancy service. This includes assessing the capabilities of their existing assets, developing solutions for refurbishment projects and advise on the design of new buildings whilst interfacing with multiple design teams and helping the client with their ongoing building management.
We listen and consult to fully understand the design aspirations for a development, and we facilitate these through imaginative and innovative fire engineering techniques, often working beyond the boundaries of prescriptive code guidance.
To learn more about our Fire discipline please click here.
What sort of projects have the team worked on?
Louvre, Abu Dhabi - Our pioneering work has enabled the display galleries to remain ‘un-sprinklered’, enabling the vision of the client in retaining the aesthetic purity, but requiring extensive risk analysis and negotiations with the approval authorities.
Battersea Power Station – Repurposing this historic landmark in to a 21st Century destination where people work, rest and play has required us to take a highly creative approach to the brief and developing bespoke designs that deliver added value to our client, and an iconic facility for the city.
Edward Street Quarter, Brighton - The scheme to deliver a residential mixed-use development on the former Amex House, Brighton will provide new homes, retail space, office accommodation and public spaces, as well as offering employment opportunities for the local community.
What would I do?
- Develop expertise in delivering fire safety engineering solutions in a multi-disciplinary environment with solid experience in developing fire strategies, undertaking engineering analysis and applying performance based designs.
- Work with other members of the team to understand and apply fire safety legislation and design guidance in the UK and internationally as part of global project delivery.
- Carry out and review fire engineering calculations including smoke modelling and evacuation analysis from simple hand calculations to complex 3D computational modelling
- Build knowledge to be able to identify appropriate fixed fire protection systems, i.e. automatic fire detection and/or suppression to support fire engineering design solutions.
- Communicate and present technical solutions to a variety of clients and stakeholders.
- Ensure team members are kept informed of important and relevant service/design decisions.
- Liaise with approval authorities on fire safety designs.
- Demonstrate excellent consultancy skills; Good communication and experience in dealing with difficult situations, negotiation and understanding the differing needs of our clients and within stakeholder groups.
- Visit sites to see how our fire strategies are implemented.
What degree would I be studying towards?
Masters in Fire Engineering or Bachelor’s degrees in Civil or Mechanical Engineering, as they offer relevant foundation knowledge.
What's in it for you?
Broad insight within a team, mentored by a subject matter expert. The opportunity to experience our culture and value, and learn what sets us apart from other organisations. Exposure to a wide range of portfolios, including local community led projects and global large scale clients. The diversity of the projects we work on is one of the many reasons Engineers love to work at Buro Happold.
Application Process
We typically complete shortlisting after the role has closed. Therefore, you can expect to hear from us with 2-4 weeks of the job closing on our website. Should you wish to contact us to find out more information or to get an update, please contact earlycareers@burohappold.com. This is a paid role aimed at current students for an 8 week summer internship. Most of our summer placements start in June however we are flexible in regards to start date.
Please note that this role is for an Autumn 2025 start.
A place for everyone
Buro Happold values an individual's flexible approaches to working patterns as an important part of how you work and achieve balance. We welcome applications from those who are seeking flexibility in their careers. Our exceptional portfolio of projects is the result of the diversity of thought, identities, backgrounds, and experiences that shape us. Appreciating each other’s differences is key, we want employees to feel they don’t have to mask elements of their identity to thrive.
We are working to change the lack of representation of marginalised groups in the built environment. We are particularly keen to hear from anyone who feels they are underrepresented in the industry. We have much to learn from one another. Embracing differences allows us to develop the most innovative and elegant solutions. Please let us know if there are any adjustments we could make to the application process to make it easier and more comfortable for you. Contact recruitment@burohappold.com so we can work with you to support you throughout your application.
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