Building services engineer

This  occupation is found in the construction, built environment and engineering sectors, with building services engineers employed in a variety of organisation types and sizes. 

The broad purpose of the occupation is to bring the built environment to life by connecting up the buildings we live and work in, ensuring they meet the needs of the people, plant, and services they need to accommodate, whilst providing comfort, building safety, security and efficiency through ever increasing environmental safeguarding.

Building services engineers use and apply advanced theoretical and technical knowledge and know how to solve broadly defined  engineering problems to design, deliver and manage building services engineering solutions and systems within a building. The main types of building services systems are:

• Mechanical: heating, ventilation, and cooling;
• Electrical: power, lighting, fire detection, communications; and
• Public health: water and waste services, and drainage. 

In these areas, building services engineers may consider: 

• Comfort and control, including heating and ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration, and lighting (artificial and natural) and acoustics.
• Efficiency and sustainability, including the capture, supply and use of energy (electrical, mechanical, and other power systems, renewable energy systems (such as solar, wind or heat pump sources), water supply and management (including plumbing and drainage), communication networks to aid integrated systems and intelligent buildings, and façade engineering.
• Safety and security, including emergency lighting, security and alarm systems, fire detection and prevention, emergency back-up systems, inclusive access, and flow through buildings for both people and equipment, including escalators and lifts.

Building services engineers use and apply advanced engineering knowledge, underpinned by advanced scientific and mathematical principles and theories, whilst using a range of methods, techniques, and procedures to deliver building services engineering solutions. They do so by sourcing, reviewing, interpreting, critically analysing and evaluating a range of data and information, specifying materials or processes, and propose and deliver solutions for building services engineering problems, evaluating performance and support continuous improvement.   

With the need to mitigate the detrimental effects on the environment and an increased drive for carbon emission reduction, improvements in building performance and sustainability, building services engineers will consider the whole life cycle of a building services asset, ensuring building service engineering systems and projects align with United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDG), respond to carbon net-zero emissions targets, and are compliant with environmental and sustainability policies and legislation, including the climate change act. 

Building services engineers will prepare, produce and present building services engineering information, designs and documentation, with regard for the practical need to install, maintain, manage and improve building services equipment and systems, and to relevant codes of practice and industry standards, to statutory and regulatory requirements (such as the Building Safety Act 2022, BSI Flex 8670, Construction (Design and Management) (CDM)), and complying with health, safety and wellbeing requirements. 

They use appropriate analytical and computational software, including engineering analysis software (such as CAD, Revit or building energy management system (BEMS) software), to prepare, produce, and communicate building services engineering solutions, recognising the limitations of the techniques and outputs produced. Many building services engineers now use digital data modelling processes and systems, such as Building Information Management (BIM), using ISO 19650 standards, to manage information over the whole life cycle of a building services engineering asset (such as the information required for the ‘golden thread’). 

Building services engineers will be responsible for initiating, planning, and managing tasks, projects or processes, the team members, or specialist technical input, and wider resources needed, whilst applying appropriate project, financial, legal and commercial management knowledge and techniques, using quality management systems and risk assessment procedures to mitigate risks, and to improve safe systems and security.

They will also commission, carry out, or review site inspections or surveys, report progress against performance criteria, and check specified technical aspects of design, site or manufacturing activities.

In their daily work, employees interact with their line manager, often a senior engineer or project manager, and their team members, to determine, manage, and review tasks, projects and programmes of work, agreeing individual and team responsibilities; they do so to design, produce and evaluate building services engineering solutions, ensuring they are fit for purpose, safe, secure, environmentally sustainable, and meet customer and industry specifications. 

Building Services Engineers will regularly work with other building services engineers and technicians, and specialist contactors for which they may be responsible for.   They will also collaborate with others working in a range of disciplines, and from various employer types (e.g. clients, consultancies, contractors); these might include civil engineers, surveyors, architects, project managers, planners, environmental practitioners, legal or finance teams, where they will need to communicate effectively in relation to technical and project matters.

Depending on their employer, building services engineers will also communicate and collaborate with those outside their own organisation, including clients or customers, consultants or contractors, suppliers, manufacturers, and with stakeholders or with representatives from appropriate regulatory bodies.

Building services engineers, depending on their employer, will spend their time in an office environment, working on site, working remotely or a combination of these.

Employees are responsible for designing, delivering and managing building services engineering technical solutions to specification, ensuring accuracy and quality, within financial, time, resource, commercial and legal limits, and compliant with health and safety regulations, to industry, regulatory and legislative standards, including the Building Safety Act 2022.  They must also comply with health and safety regulations, including the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, Construction (Design and Management) regulation, and environmental and sustainability policies.

They are able to make decisions, exercising sound independent engineering judgement, whilst knowing their own limits of authority when undertaking the occupational duties in a range of contexts and environments, adapting to issues that arise, informing the actions to be taken and reviewing the effectiveness of these actions. They are also responsible for their own, and promoting the benefits of, equality, diversity and inclusion and continuing professional development, and recognising their own obligations to society.