Forensic Engineer (MEP / Building Services) — Abu Dhabi

Open to electrical OR mechanical biased building services engineers. Full forensic and expert witness training provided.

JustEng is recruiting a Forensic Engineer (MEP / Building Services) for the newly opened Abu Dhabi office of an employee-owned forensic investigation and expert witness consultancy. The firm investigates fires, failures, escapes of water and engineering disputes for insurers, loss adjusters, law firms and major corporates, and its specialists cover a very wide range of technical fields.

The Abu Dhabi office is the firm’s base for investigation work across the UAE and the wider Middle East. It is new — which is the point. You would be joining at the stage where the caseload, the client relationships and the technical reputation of the office are still being built, rather than inheriting a mature desk. For a building services engineer this is a genuine career move: from designing systems to establishing why they failed. Full structured training in forensic method and expert witness practice is provided.

Open to both electrical and mechanical

The client is deliberately open on discipline bias. A strong electrical building services engineer and a strong mechanical or HVAC engineer are equally welcome — what matters is depth in one and working literacy in the other, because real MEP failures rarely respect the boundary between them. A chilled water plant failure is a mechanical problem right up until you find the control panel that caused it.

About the sector

Forensic engineering and expert witness work is the investigation of failures, defects, fires and disputes, producing independent technical evidence relied on in insurance claims, arbitrations and court proceedings. The work sits at the intersection of engineering, investigation and law.

There is a specific reason the UAE is busy right now. The new UAE Civil Code (Federal Decree-Law No. 25 of 2025) came into force on 1 June 2026 and re-states decennial liability at Articles 821 to 824: for ten years from handover the main contractor and the engineer are jointly and severally liable to the employer for defects affecting the structural integrity or safety of the works, the regime is mandatory and cannot be contracted out of, and a claim must be brought within three years of the defect being discovered. Liability of that kind is only ever resolved on technical evidence — which is what a forensic engineer produces.

For an MEP specialist working out of Abu Dhabi, casework typically includes:

• Escape of water — failed pipework, joints and fittings, sprinkler and wet riser discharge, condensate and drainage failures, and the water damage claims that follow in high-rise residential and commercial towers
• Cooling failures — chillers, district cooling connections, cooling towers, AHUs and FCUs, pumps, refrigerant systems and BMS faults, in a climate where a cooling outage becomes a habitability and business interruption claim within hours
• Condensation, humidity and mould — the failure mode that follows from the gap between a 45°C ambient and a conditioned interior, and one of the most commonly disputed defects in the region
• Electrical distribution failures — LV and HV switchgear, transformers, busduct, generators, UPS and standby systems, and installation defects assessed against the applicable wiring regulations
• Dust, sand and coastal corrosion — filtration and ingress failures, and chloride-driven corrosion of plant, pipework and containment in a hot, humid, marine environment
• Data centre incidents — power train and cooling failures, and the very large business interruption claims that follow in a market expanding this quickly
• Solar PV and battery energy storage — module, inverter, connector and DC arc failures on utility-scale and rooftop installations, and lithium-ion thermal events
• Fire origin and cause where the suspected source is an MEP system, plus the performance of active and passive fire protection, and facade and cladding fire spread
• Oil, gas, petrochemical and desalination plant failures — machinery, process and utilities incidents, drawing on the emirate’s industrial base
• Construction defects and professional negligence claims involving building services design, installation and commissioning
• Product liability and equipment failure investigations for manufacturers and their insurers

What the role involves

• Attending incident scenes at short notice across the UAE and the wider region — securing, recording and recovering evidence before it is lost
• Examining failed plant, components and installations, on site and under laboratory conditions
• Reviewing designs, specifications, shop drawings, commissioning records, O&M documentation and maintenance regimes
• Assessing compliance against the codes that apply locally — the UAE Fire and Life Safety Code of Practice and its Abu Dhabi amendments, the Abu Dhabi building code administered by the Department of Municipalities and Transport, Estidama Pearl requirements, distribution company wiring regulations, and the BS, IEC and ASHRAE standards routinely specified on UAE projects
• Forming a defensible opinion on cause, and setting out the reasoning that supports it
• Producing a preliminary report shortly after the site visit, followed by a full investigation report
• Writing expert reports to the standards required by the UAE onshore courts, the ADGM and DIFC courts, and arbitrations seated at arbitrateAD, DIAC and the ICC — and in time giving evidence
• Working alongside insurers, loss adjusters, solicitors, developers, contractors and other technical experts
• Participating in the firm’s peer-review process — your work is checked, and you will check others’
• Advising clients on risk mitigation drawn from patterns across previous cases

Full training in forensic method, evidential report writing and expert witness procedure is provided. Nobody is put in front of a tribunal unprepared.

Why building services engineers excel in forensics

MEP is arguably the most transferable discipline into forensic investigation, because building services engineers already spend their careers on the question forensics is built around: why is this system not behaving as designed?

• Fault-finding and commissioning experience is diagnostic work already — forensics is the same reasoning with degraded evidence and higher stakes
• You understand system interdependence: how a control fault presents as a mechanical failure, and how an electrical defect presents as a water loss
• You can read schematics, schedules, specifications and commissioning records, and tell a design failure from an installation failure from a maintenance failure
• Standards fluency is directly relevant — compliance is frequently the pivot of a dispute
• Site experience tells you what correctly installed work looks like, and therefore what a defect looks like
• You are practised at structured technical writing, which is most of what a forensic engineer produces

About you

• A strong academic background is essential — a first-class or upper-second Master’s-level degree in electrical, electronic, mechanical or building services engineering, or a closely related discipline, from a well-regarded university
• A second degree (PhD or EngD) is viewed very favourably but is not required
• Solid design or delivery experience in MEP / building services — consultancy, specialist contracting, client side or facilities engineering all translate
• Depth in either electrical or mechanical, with working literacy in the other
• Professional registration is welcomed — Chartered Engineer status through a UK institution, or equivalent recognition. Candidates working towards registration will be supported
• Gulf or wider Middle East experience is useful but not essential; engineers relocating from the UK, Europe, Australasia or Asia are equally welcome
• Excellent written English. Your reports are the product, and they will be scrutinised line by line
• A methodical, curious, evidence-led mind, and the honesty to report what the evidence shows rather than what the client hoped
• Willingness to travel across the UAE and the wider region at short notice, and comfort with fieldwork in plantrooms, risers and fire-damaged buildings
• A UAE driving licence, or the ability to obtain one — site attendance is a core part of the job
• Eligibility for UAE residency and a work permit; the employer sponsors
• No prior forensic or expert witness experience is required — this is trained

What’s on offer

• A competitive package, benchmarked to the UAE market and shaped around experience — discussed openly at first conversation
• Earnings that, across this sector, run materially ahead of equivalent design consultancy roles, and continue to diverge as you become an established expert
• UAE-based employment, with the tax treatment of personal income that comes with it
• Comprehensive training in forensic investigation and expert witness procedure
• Support towards professional registration and further study
• A regional caseload across the UAE and the wider Middle East, with the technical variety that brings
• The backing of an established global forensic network, with peer review as standard
• Employee ownership: the business is owned by the people who work in it, not by external investors
• The ground-floor position in a new office — influence over how it is built, and the internal visibility that goes with it
• More predictable workloads than project-driven design consultancy

The long-term case

• The pay gap is the headline. Forensic and expert witness work is priced on expertise and independence, not on drawing production — and the ceiling sits well above what design consultancy pays for the same technical background
• Recession-resistant. Claims, failures and disputes do not stop when construction slows — they often increase
• Abu Dhabi is a natural base: a young but very large building stock now moving into the defects and decennial liability window, heavy industrial and energy infrastructure, rapid data centre and solar build-out, a substantial insurance market and two established arbitration seats
• Ten-year decennial liability under the new Civil Code means the technical evidence market here has a long, legally mandated tail
• Globally portable. Forensic method and expert credibility travel, and this employer operates across several continents
• Your name goes on the report. In forensics you build a personal professional reputation, not just a project record
• People who move into this sector very rarely leave it

How to apply

To register your interest or arrange a confidential conversation, contact JustEng or submit your CV. Salary is discussed directly and in confidence.