Job Description

Contract:

Permanent

Working Hours:

37 hours per week

Salary:

50,269.00 - 53,460.00 per annum

Location:

Service Headquarters, Kelvedon Park

Closing Date:

19th October 2025

The Role

Within the Protection department for Essex County Fire and Rescue Service (ECFRS), we are passionate about fire safety. In the role of our Business Engagement Manager, you will be responsible for overseeing our External Business Engagement Activity, Internal Quality Assurance Process, and the management of our Primary Authority Scheme (PAS) partnerships. This will include close liaison and collaboration with internal and external stakeholders, local/national business representatives, as well as other regulatory bodies.

What you will be working on:

To manage, develop and maintain business partnerships, to enable greater compliance with relevant fire safety legislation. Manage the attendance of ECFRS Business Engagement Team at business engagement events, in collaboration with local Protection Officers. Develop Protection Officers' knowledge and skills to continually improve business engagement. Represent ECFRS at external business events. Manage the engagement of various business groups from our communities in a range of activities, promoting fire safety in their premises, depending on the risk from their trade/sector. Set objectives that ensure the education of these groups on the benefits of their engagement with ECFRS. Monitor unwanted fire signals (UwFS), analysing data and directing your team to engage with premises with high UwFS, to reduce unnecessary ECFRS attendance, thereby reducing both risk and cost to the Service. Develop and implement initiatives to raise awareness of the issue of UwFS, the dangers associated with them, and the benefits of reducing them. Engage with Local Authorities and act as point of contact for them, and other agencies, should concerns be raised in relation to premises. Manage ECFRS response to attend such premises to ensure fire safety, either as part of a multi-agency exercise or as an alleged fire risk under the relevant fire safety legislation. Act as a point of contact for Business Engagement and for other agencies in relation to Local Authorities. Collaborate with the Service's Corporate Communications Department on behalf of the Protection Department to develop engagement initiatives to assist in promoting Protection initiatives and messages. To support internal Protection Quality Assurance processes, as aligned to the Protection Quality Assurance Policy. To co-ordinate and support ongoing internal Protection CFRMIS development, as aligned to the services Risk Based Intervention Programme (RBIP). To manage ECFRS Primary Authority Partnerships, ensuring assured and consistent regulatory advice is provided to partners to ensure continued compliance to recognised fire safety legislation.

What are we looking for

This role will be perfect for you if you are passionate about fire safety, and are motivated by what you can bring to ECFRS and those responsible for fire safety within their business. You will have experience in fire safety, including a detailed understanding of relevant legislation. You will have a strong desire to seek continuous professional development, including through self-development. You will need to have strong interpersonal skills, as well as experience of supporting others, both internally and externally as representative of the organisation.

Eligibility

To be eligible to apply for these opportunities, you must:

It is essential that the successful candidate holds a Level 4 Diploma in Fire Safety. Full driving licence. No current live disciplinary or performance warnings, nor are you subject to any informal management for reasons of conduct or performance. It is expected that you will have had a conversation with your line manager about your aspirations and career and development and your intention to apply for this opportunity prior to submitting your application. As part of the process, we will be confirming you have discussed your application with your line manager.

Our Culture and Benefits

Here at Essex County Fire and Rescue Service we are committed to prioritising and promoting the wellbeing of our employees.

Important Information for Firefighter Pension Scheme Pensioners

If you are currently in receipt of a pension from the Firefighter Pension Scheme, please note that taking up this role may affect your pension. Under pension abatement rules, if your earnings in this role, when combined with your pension, exceed your pre-retirement salary (adjusted for inflation), your pension may be reduced.

Safeguarding

Essex Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner Fire and Rescue Authority is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and vulnerable adults and expects all employees and volunteers to share this commitment.

It is our policy to require all applicants for employment to disclose if you are currently being investigated by any regulatory body or have any decisions or sanctions pending or in progress in respect of your suitability to work for the Service.

You agree to inform the Service within 24 hours if you are subsequently investigated by any agency or organisation in relation to concerns about your behaviour towards children, young people or vulnerable adults.

The information you provide will be treated as strictly confidential and will be considered only in relation to the appointment for which you are applying.

This role will be subject to a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check.

Disability Confident

We are an equal opportunities, Disability Confident, employer who welcomes applications from everyone and values diversity in our workplace. A commitment to promoting diversity and developing a work environment where all staff are treated with dignity and respect is central to our recruitment process and all applications will be considered solely on merit.

As part of our offer to support all our candidates to perform to the best of their abilities during our recruitment and selection processes and we would like to let you know about a couple of support options you can access, should you wish to, including our employee forums, who are keen and willing to support all of our potential colleagues.

Our employee forums and partners include:

Asian Fire Services Association (AFSA), BEING (our LGBTQ+ employee support network), Christian Fellowship, Ethnic Minority Forum, Men's Forum, and our Women's Forum. In addition, we also have a female firefighters operational group.

Further to the above, the Service has a Digital Accessibility Inclusion Group (DAIG) that supports all colleagues to improve their digital skills and provides additional support and guidance to colleagues with neurodivergent strengths and struggles as a result of dyslexia, ADHD, Autism, dyspraxia etc. We want everyone to thrive at work, and so we encourage and enable people to access digital tools to help them perform at your best. The DAIG is a group of colleagues from across the Service that unite to support others as a result of their lived experience and desire to make a difference. They support people with a range of visible and invisible disabilities to identify and access digital workplace adjustments and solutions and may be able to assist with your application too.

Job Types: Full-time, Permanent

Pay: 50,269.00-53,460.00 per year

Work Location: In person