Legal Counsel

Job Title: Legal Counsel

Working Pattern: Full time

Working location: Bristol/hybrid

An exciting role has become available within the Defence UK&I Legal team for a legal counsel, to support all aspects of the team’s work across the Defence business but with a particular focus on GCAP. Working with other lawyers in this high-performing and supportive team, you will provide business critical legal advice and analysis to the business, ensuring that risks are understood and ensuring that business decisions are made with a clear understanding of the relevant legal background.

Why Rolls-Royce?

Rolls-Royce is one of the most enduring and iconic brands in the world and has been at the forefront of innovation for over a century. We design, build and service systems that provide critical power to customers where safety and reliability are paramount.

We are proud to be a force for progress, powering, protecting and connecting people everywhere.

We want to ensure that the excellence and ingenuity that has shaped our history continues into our future and we need people like you to come and join us on this journey.

This role primarily supports the GCAP but offers the opportunity to support all aspects of the UK&I Defence business.

We’ll provide an environment of caring and belonging where you can be yourself. An inclusive, innovative culture that invests in you, gives you access to an incredible breadth and depth of opportunities where you can grow your career and make a difference.

This role offers the opportunity to work with and learn from the existing team of senior lawyers, in a fast-moving, international environment where inter-personal skills and commercial awareness are as important as technical legal ability.

What we offer

We offer excellent development opportunities, a competitive salary, and exceptional benefits. These include bonus, employee support assistance and employee discounts.

Your needs are as unique as you are. Hybrid working is a way in which our people can balance their time between the office, home, or another remote location.  It’s a locally managed and flexed informal discretionary arrangement.  As a minimum we’re all expected to attend the workplace for collaboration and other specific reasons, on average three days per week.

What you will be doing

With this attractive opportunity you will get a chance to:

• Develop your legal skills in the in-house environment
• Advise on complex, time-critical and high-value contracts and business constructs that are vital to the future of the Defence business.
• Work within an integrated and supportive General Counsel team, advising and learning from other expert advisers, and co-ordinating the advice given to the business in a way that is pragmatic, timely and useful.

Who we’re looking for:

At Rolls-Royce we put safety first, do the right thing, keep it simple and make a difference. These principles form the behaviours that guide us and are an essential component of our assessment process. They are the fundamental qualities that we seek for all roles.

To be successful in this role you will need to:

• possess excellent legal technical and analytical skills, and be able to produce your advice in a form that is comprehensible, pragmatic and responsive to the needs of the business
• Relish getting to grips with a technically complex commercial environment, working with partners and colleagues across organisations and different cultures
• Be flexible and business-focussed, adopting a “can do” attitude towards a varied workload
• Be a confident and fluent communicator and advocate

We are an equal opportunities employer. We’re committed to developing a diverse workforce and an inclusive working environment. We believe that people from different backgrounds and cultures give us different perspectives which are crucial to innovation and problem solving. We believe the more diverse perspectives we have, the more successful we’ll be. By building a culture of caring and belonging, we give everyone who works here the opportunity to realise their full potential.

You can learn more about our global Inclusion strategy at Our people | Rolls-Royce

To work for the Rolls-Royce Submarines business an individual has to hold a Security Check clearance.  Rolls-Royce will support the application for Security Clearance if you do not currently already have this in place.  Due to the nature of work the business conducts and the protection of certain assets we can only progress applications from individuals who are a UK national or, in MoD approved cases, a dual national.

Closing date: 11/12/25