{"id":3039688,"url":"https://alion.io/job/saab-uav-concept-engineer","title":"UAV Concept Engineer","company":{"id":37170,"name":"Saab","domain":"saab.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/saab","size_band":"1001-5000","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Workday","truth_index":null},"role":"Industrial Engineering","role_family":"Industrial Engineering","seniority":null,"employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["United Kingdom"],"countries":["GB"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":39000,"max_usd":83000,"period":"year","method":"role_country_seniority_unknown","sample_n":875},"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"ArduPilot","optional":false},{"name":"Human-in-the-Loop","optional":false},{"name":"MAVLink","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-05T00:00:00Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-05","last_verified_at":"2026-10-25T10:53:38Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":21,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":21},"description":"Introduction:\nSaab UK is part of Scandinavia’s largest defence company, bringing together the best of Swedish and British innovation. Saab offers world-leading solutions and services in defence, aviation, space, and civil security to keep people and society safe. Our UK presence has been growing at pace, meaning we can offer a wide range of opportunities for personal fulfilment and career growth. We currently employ over 600 people across eight sites in the UK, and our specialisations include software engineering, underwater robotics, radars, AI, and armed forces training.\nWhat you will be part of:\nSaab is a leading defence and security company with an enduring purpose, to help nations keep their people and society safe.\nEmpowered by its 28,000 talented people, Saab constantly pushes the boundaries of technology to create a safer and more sustainable world.\nSaab designs, manufactures and maintains advanced systems in aeronautics, weapons, command and control, sensors and underwater systems.\nSaab is headquartered in Sweden. It has major operations all over the world and is part of the domestic defence capability of several nations.\nThe Role:\nBlue Bear is a leading autonomy and unmanned systems company. We are continuously innovating within the core area of Autonomy and Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) such as air vehicles, autopilots, navigation solutions, mission systems and ground control stations. We are currently seeking engineers to help conceptualise, size and mature the next generation of our air vehicle platforms.\nWe are seeking a UAV Concept Engineer to strengthen our early-stage design capability: turning requirements and CONOPS into sized, analysed and testable air vehicle concepts through rapid, iterative trade studies. This role is central to our conceptual design loop, by early exploring design trade space and rapidly iterating through geometry, aerodynamics, weights, propulsion, mission and stability.\nA defining part of this role is closing the loop between analysis and reality. You will synthesise data from bench and flight testing, flight logs, telemetry and measured performance and feed it back to correct and improve our conceptual models, sizing methods and surrogates, so each design iteration is grounded in real evidence.\nWorking as part of the Concepts team, you will bring a proactive, collaborative approach and a passion for fast iteration, sound engineering judgement and building tools and methods that make the whole team faster.\nKey Responsibilities:\nPerform aircraft conceptual sizing and constraint analysis (wing loading vs thrust/power-to-weight, weight closure, mission/energy sizing) to define feasible design points for new UAV concepts.\n\nDevelop and morph parametric air vehicle geometry and Outer Mould Line and drive it through the analysis loop, regenerating a concept from a defined parameter set.\n\nProduce the core conceptual outputs each iteration: drag polars, lift curves, weight breakdowns, mission energy/endurance, static margin, trim and control authority.\n\nRun trade studies and design-space exploration to make optimisation and sensitivity studies fast enough to explore many designs.\n\nSynthesise flight-test and bench-test data (flight logs, telemetry, measured aero/propulsion performance) and use it to validate, calibrate and improve conceptual models and sizing methods.\n\nSelect and shape propulsion system concepts and integrate them into mission and energy-network performance analysis.\n\nMaintain, improve and where appropriate build the concept-design toolchain and automation that underpins rapid iteration (geometry, aero, mission, surrogate and data-processing tools).\n\nCapture and communicate design risk, where the design is immature or sensitive and feed it into the programme risk register.\n\nQualifications and skills:\nWe are specifically looking for someone with hands-on experience in aircraft sizing, concept-design tooling, and the synthesis of flight-test data to improve models\n\nDemonstrable experience in aircraft / UAV conceptual design and sizing, constraint analysis, weight and mission/energy sizing, and closing a design point.\n\nHands-on experience with conceptual and preliminary design tools such as OpenVSP, RCAIDE, AVL, XFLR5, Datcom or equivalent in-house tools.\n\nSound applied aerodynamics knowledge, drag build-up, lift curves, drag polars and the ability to generate and interpret them for design decisions.\n\nExperience synthesising flight logs / telemetry / test data and using it to validate and improve analytical models (model calibration, correlation to test).\n\nStrong scripting and analysis skills in Python (or similar) for automation, data processing and building/using design tools.\n\nWorking understanding of the full conceptual design loop: geometry, aerodynamics, weights, propulsion, mission performance and stability & control, and how the disciplines couple.\n\nAbility to work iteratively, favouring fast, defensible estimates over slow precision at the conceptual stage, and to communicate assumptions and uncertainty clearly.\n\nStrong problem-solving skills, sound engineering judgement, and a proactive approach to improving methods and tools.\n\nAbility to work collaboratively across a small, multidisciplinary engineering team.\n\nStructural analysis, FEA, airframe structural sizing.\n\nStability & control analysis, flight dynamics modelling, and handling-qualities assessment.\n\nDesign-of-experiments for sub systems.\n\nPropulsion sizing and integration of electric, hybrid-electric or gas turbine systems.\n\nExperience with PX4 / ArduPilot, SITL/HITL simulation, and processing autopilot flight logs (ULog, MAVLink).\n\nCAD and geometry handling; exporting/meshing surfaces for higher-fidelity aero (panel/CFD).\n\nMid- to high-fidelity aero exposure (panel methods such as FlightStream, or RANS CFD) for validating key design points.\n\nExperience working in safety-critical, regulated or defence environments.\n\nAbility to gain SC Clearance.\n\nSaab UK Company Benefits:\n30 days annual leave\n\nWorkplace pension scheme with 8% company contribution\n\nPrivate medical insurance\n\nGroup income protection scheme\n\nDeath in service insurance\n\nUp to 5% share matching scheme\n\nCompany enhanced Maternity/Adoption & Paternity leave.\n\n+ Much more\n\nBy submitting an application to Saab UK you consent to undertaking workforce screening activities that may include but are not limited to: Baseline Personnel Security checks, National Security Vetting, reference checks, verification of working rights and in all circumstances preferred candidates will be placed through a security interview.","description_format":"text","description_chars":6604,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Annual leave","Health insurance"],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Drones & UAVs","Naval Systems","Missiles","C4ISR"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-21T22:22:11Z"}],"visa":[{"country":"GB","licensed_sponsor":true,"evidence":"Licensed UK visa sponsor (Skilled Worker, Senior or Specialist Worker)","filings_12m":null,"filings_prev_12m":null,"green_card_filings_12m":null,"median_offered_wage_usd":null,"route":"Skilled Worker; Global Business Mobility: Senior or Specialist Worker","cap_exempt":false,"checked_at":"2026-10-24T06:24:00+00:00","sources":["UK Home Office: register of licensed sponsors (workers)"],"filings_for_role_12m":0}],"liveness":{"score":67,"band":"ok","label":"Likely open","p_open":1,"p_active":0.744,"p_room":0.9,"age_days":21,"expected_fill_days":32,"reasons":["conf:19","velocity","win:mid","comp:brand"],"computed_at":"2026-10-26T05:57:25Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/saab-uav-concept-engineer","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/saab-uav-concept-engineer.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-26T10:30:19Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":14058,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-27T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":37170},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=37170"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fsaab-uav-concept-engineer"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fsaab-uav-concept-engineer"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fsaab-uav-concept-engineer"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/saab-uav-concept-engineer\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fsaab-uav-concept-engineer"}]}