Engineering & Design Lead

Overview

As Design & Engineering Lead, you will steer engineering and design strategy for National Highways Area 5 (including the M25), ensuring safe, compliant and sustainable delivery. You will lead a multidisciplinary design and engineering team, drive innovation and digital transformation, and govern technical assurance across asset types. The role requires strategic stakeholder engagement to align investment decisions with long-term asset management. This is a high-impact opportunity to shape critical UK infrastructure and improve network resilience.

Responsibilities

• Define and deliver the engineering and design strategy for the Area 5 network
• Lead multidisciplinary engineering and design teams to foster excellence and accountability
• Act as senior technical authority for governance, assurance and compliance
• Ensure safe, compliant delivery of all design activities while meeting commercial and customer objectives
• Oversee resource planning across programmes and funding streams
• Drive innovation, digital transformation and adoption of emerging technologies
• Maintain Principal Designer (CDM) responsibilities across the portfolio
• Influence stakeholders to shape investment strategies and long-term asset management
• Optimise whole-life asset performance balancing risk, cost, sustainability and customer impact
• Lead engineering support for incident response, resilience planning and emergency recovery
• Oversee engineering survey strategies, asset intelligence and geospatial modelling
• Manage engineering budgets, workforce capability and succession planning

Key requirements

• Chartered Engineer status
• Experience in engineering design management of maintenance or project delivery
• Strong leadership and matrix-organisation experience
• Ability to manage multiple projects under pressure
• Familiarity with industry safety standards and regulations
• Bachelor’s degree in engineering, construction management or relevant field (or suitable level of industry experience)

• Customer focus
• Excellence orientation
• Teamwork and collaboration
• Engineering governance and assurance
• Design delivery across multiple asset types
• CDM Principal Designer responsibilities

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