Airport Operational Engineer - Cardiff

NATS is the UK’s leading air navigation service provider, handling over 2 million flights each year. It provides air traffic control services from two control centres supporting airports all around the UK, as well as a wide range of commercial solutions to over 30 countries internationally. Our people are at the heart of our purpose to advance aviation and keep the skies safe. 

Closing Date: Friday 26th September 2025

Join us at Cardiff Airport in a unique engineering role ensuring critical systems are available for operational use. You'll lead planned and reactive maintenance across key ATC technologies.

What You’ll Do: 

• Maintain and troubleshoot critical ATC systems to ensure seamless operations 

• Lead fault prioritisation and coordinate rapid service recovery 

• Make key operational decisions and offer expert technical support 

• Keep accurate records and ensure compliance with safety standards 

• Brief ATC and engineering teams; supervise maintenance staff and contractors 

• Maintain your competency ratings and escalate concerns as needed 

• Support incident investigations and contribute to safety reporting 
• Work hands-on across diverse ATC technologies and airport interfaces

Qualifications and Skills:

• Professional engineering qualification to Higher National Certificate (Level 4 or SQF Level 7) as a minimum Electronics, Telecommunications or Computer Science or other relevant Engineering discipline

In lieu of the above qualifications the candidate will be required to demonstrate one of the following alternative criteria: 

1. Relevant lower-level engineering qualifications such as an Apprenticeship coupled with demonstrable engineering experience in a relevant field (May include but not limited to: RAF, Navy, Rail, other Safety Critical environment) 
2. Evidence of substantial experience gained in a relevant transferable environment (such as ATSEP) gained over a significant period

• Experience of supporting systems and equipment similar to those used by ANSP’s such as RAF, Navy, Rail, other Safety Critical environment and experience in maintenance engineering on this type of equipment.  

• Shall demonstrate an understanding of safety critical systems and the impact they may have within our operational environment. 

• Must be able to prioritise actions under pressure, be technically competent to work on a wide range of equipment and have a logical approach to problem solving. 

• Must have effective oral and written communication skills with the ability to present information accurately and succinctly to customers and suppliers who may not have the same level of operational engineering understanding. 

• General ability to work as part of a team or on own initiative and possess effective judgement skills in order to maintain operational services in a safety critical environment. 

• Must be the holder of a full UK driving licence. 
• Possess commercial awareness in order to appreciate what impact a facility failure would have on our customers and have a good understanding of internal relationships and dependencies on the ATM engineering systems which they are responsible for.

Additional Vacancy Information:

Note: Offer is subject to passing a colour vision test. 

Hours: Rotational shifts, Mon–Fri, 08:00–16:00. 

On-Call: 1 in 3 weeks once competency achieved, providing 24/7 cover.  On-Call attracts an additional allowance. 

We are proud to offer a fantastic total reward package to help you thrive both personally and professionally -please visit - Why NATS? - NATS' 

If you share our passion to advance aviation and keep the skies safe – we would like to hear from you whatever your age, sex, race, faith, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, visible or invisible disability. Individuals that bring different perspectives, skills, life experiences and backgrounds help us be at the forefront of our industry.