Website Essex County Fire and Rescue Service
Contract: Fixed Term / Permanent
Working Hours: 37 hours per week
Salary: £38,220.00 – £40,777.00 (Grade 7, Green Book)
Location: TBC*
Closing Date: 4th February 2026
*We are open to discuss flexibility over hours, however the expectation is that, as a hybrid role your work will be balanced between home and Services facilities. You will be expected to attend the Service premises for at least 3 days of a 5-day working week. Please be aware that hybrid working will not normally be available until such time that your skill level allows.
This role is a fixed-term opportunity. If the role is extended (or made permanent), the extension or permanent position may be offered to the successful applicant ahead of any further recruitment process.
The Role
Do you share our passion for making our communities safer? Can you provide practical advice on how to make our buildings and workspaces safer places? Are you excited to learn more about making Essex a safe place to live work and travel putting your knowledge and skills into practice in a diverse and challenging county?
If so, then the right opportunity for you has arisen within our Protection (formerly known as Fire Safety) team. As part of our Prevention and Protection strategies we are committed to undertaking more safety audits than ever before, and we are looking for the right people to represent us in the community, providing the right advice and responses to fire safety challenges.
The role will involve working within the Community inspecting a variety of buildings, providing advice to the responsible person and where necessary taking enforcement action, assessing statutory consultations including a requirement to assess the design of new or extended buildings against the Building Regulations to ensure the design is compliant. You may also be required to deliver fire safety training to our operational firefighter teams.
What You Will Be Working On
Carry out fire safety audits in accordance with ECFRS Risk Based Intervention Programme
Carry out statutory consultations on a wide range of premises ranging from low to very high complexity
Alleged fire risks
Protection support to operational colleagues
What Are We Looking For?
This role will be perfect for you if you are passionate about (or learning about) fire safety and are motivated by what you can bring to ECFRS and the people of Essex.
You will have experience of managing your own workloads as well as being part of a team, you must have excellent time management and prioritising skills as you will be required to meet statutory deadlines.
We would love to find someone that has strong interpersonal skills and experience of working with people from all walks of life with an aim of achieving a common goal.
You will be required to attend formal courses both in person and remotely, that on successful completion will eventually culminate in you obtaining a Level Four Diploma in Fire Safety. It is a requirement that you will sign a pre-learning agreement prior to undertaking your formal training.
To be eligible to apply for these opportunities, you must:
Hold a full driving licence.
Whilst considered desirable, the provision of associated qualifications in Fire safety are not essential for this role. Any successful candidate(s) will be enrolled on the Level 3 Certificate in Fire Safety, which (upon completion) will subsequently be followed by completion of the Level 4 Diploma in Fire Safety.
Level 3 standard of education (e.g. A-Level) or equivalent experience, demonstrating a high level of numeracy and literacy.
Should candidates who are successful in being offered a role subsequently not be able to attain qualification (where courses have been reasonably available), the Service’s Performance Management policies will be applied, which could result in redeployment.
If you are an internal candidate, you must have discussed your application with your line manager and confirmed with them there are no outstanding issues of conduct or performance. This will be verified prior to shortlisting.
How to apply
You will be required to submit a CV detailing a minimum of five years employment and / or education history, along with a supporting statement of no more than 750 words that demonstrates how you meet the essential criteria detailed in the Person Specification.
You may submit this either as a word document, pdf, or an mp3 (voice note) or mp4 (video), however the word count of your supporting statement should not exceed 750 words no matter which format you choose to present your application.
You may attach separate documents (such as qualifications) should you wish. Your CV and additional documents will be referred to in shortlisting to confirm eligibility (e.g., your current role and any existing qualifications).
The assessment and selection approach will be:
Stage 1
Application & shortlisting (assessment of your supporting statement will be made against the essential criteria of the person specification)
Stage 2
Role Specific Interview and a short report writing exercise to demonstrate the applicant’s ability to provide a report in a relatively concise and logical sequence.
Further details will be given at the time of interview.
Interview Assessments will be made against positive indicators taken from the Code of Ethics and the NFCC Leadership Framework.
You can find the NFCC Leadership Framework here: NFCC_Leadership_Framework_Final.pdf (nationalfirechiefs.org.uk)
And guidance around the Code of Ethics here:
Core Code of Ethics England Guidance May 21 V0.pdf (ukfrs.com)
Guidance on Safeguarding polices can be found here:
Essex Fire – Safeguarding Statements
If you have any queries about the process, please contact recruitment@essex-fire.gov.uk
Our Culture and Benefits
Here at Essex County Fire and Rescue Service we are committed to prioritising and promoting the wellbeing of our employees.
You can find out more about our benefits at https://www.essex-fire.gov.uk/recruitment/benefits
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.
For further guidance, please contact our Pensions team on 01376 576799 or email mailbox.pensions@essex-fire.gov.uk.
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.
Should you wish to discuss support, or access further information, from one of these groups, please contact Equality.Diversity@essex-fire.gov.uk
You are also able to raise any queries or requests for support, including any adjustments you may require, at any stage of the process by email to recruitment@essex-fire.gov.uk
You can find out more about Essex County Fire & Rescue Service via www.essex-fire.gov.uk and about our vacancies and application processes via www.essex-fire.gov.uk/join-essex-fire
To apply for this job email your details to recruitment@essex-fire.gov.uk.