Principal Engineer - Highway Design

This exciting role manages and oversees the design process of Somerset Council led highway improvement projects that can range from minor improvement schemes (generally below £1,000,000) to the components of major multi-million-pound highway projects.

• This role offers hybrid working, allowing you to work either from home or from one of our offices.
• 30 days’ annual leave (plus bank holidays)
• Permanent 37-hour position.

Somerset is a great place to live, work and play, boasting plenty of beautiful sites – in villages and market towns – with a rich heritage of history and legend. Infrastructure is at the heart of our ambitions to support productivity and innovation, and we host the largest infrastructure project in Europe, Hinkley Point C. Highways play an essential role in our ambitions – we are a progressive Council that is transforming our highway services to significantly reduce carbon emissions. We’re a rural county with the tenth largest road network in the country. As the Highways Authority, we look after 6,600km of road, 2,000 bridges, 900km of ditches, 120,000 gullies and 52,000 streetlights. This network is growing too, with 9km of new highway every year, 9,500 planning applications every year and 700+ live development sites at any one time. We have over £50m of highway improvement projects in progress and planned involving both major multi-million-pound highway projects and more modest improvements in areas such as Safety, Active Travel, Bus Infrastructure, Rural Mobility, and Electric Vehicle projects. We require a range of roles to support design and delivery of these capital projects, to work with third parties in the delivery of works to both create new and improve the public highway, and support maintenance of our extensive highway assets.

We’re working to improve the lives of people in Somerset – and you’ll be a key part of that. Reporting to the Service Manager – Engineering Design , your day-to-day work will involve:

• Acting as lead designer for a wide range of highway improvement projects commissioned to the service, including Safety, Active Travel, Bus Infrastructure, Rural Mobility, Electric Vehicle projects and major multi-million-pound highway projects.
• Performing the role of a Principal Designer under the Construction Design and Management Regulations 2015 and all associated duties, including projects designed by team members.
• Undertaking a technical audit role on complex third-party designs, being responsible for the review of highway design disciplines.
• Line managing a team of highway design engineers and technicians, providing leadership, advice and guidance on highway design matters throughout the scheme lifecycle.

We offer ongoing support, training and guidance to help you be the best you can be. But it is essential that you have the following:

• Level 6 qualified in Engineering or Transport related qualification or have an equivalent professional accreditation.
• Experience and knowledge of undertaking the design and development of engineering solutions and evaluating their effectiveness in the context of the whole project life cycle.
• Extensive and proven experience of technical highway design, and use of relevant standards, including DMRB, TSRGD, TSM and Manual Streets, and the application of Construction Design and Management Regulations 2015.
• Taken an active role in the identification and definition of scheme requirements, challenges, risks, and opportunities and undertaken appropriate investigation and action.
• Led or influenced teams/ technical specialisms, and developed others to meet changing technical and managerial needs.
• Maintained technical competence through the planning and undertaking of appropriate and relevant Continuing Professional Development (CPD).

We’re proud to be here for the people of Somerset. And that means everyone in Somerset. An important part of this is ensuring that we are as diverse and inclusive as the people and communities we serve.

We welcome applications from a diverse range of backgrounds and experiences to enrich our team. You can always contact the hiring manager for a chat if there’s anything you want to talk about before you apply.

We are proud to offer an environment that is supportive and rewarding, working as part of a team who are passionate about the work they do to improve the lives of people in Somerset.

We offer great training and development opportunities, with supportive management. As well as this, we have some fantastic employee benefits available:

• We promote a healthy work-life balance and offer flexible working arrangements wherever possible, including working from home.
• Generous annual leave allowance, with the opportunity to purchase additional leave
• Staff discounts in gyms.
• Employee Assistance for the times you may need some support and a variety of employee wellbeing services.
• Auto enrolment onto our generous Pension Scheme and optional pension enhancement through our Additional Voluntary Contribution scheme.
• A Flexible Benefits Scheme via salary sacrifice to obtain a cycle for work and health screenings.
• My Staff Shop offering discounts in shops, online shopping, restaurants, cinema tickets, insurance benefits and more

The salary for the role is Grade 9, ranging from £40,476 to £44,711 per annum.

For an informal chat about the role, you can contact emma.tucker@somerset.gov.uk quoting the job reference.

If you have everything you need, just hit the apply button. We can’t wait to hear from you.