Principal Project Manager - Minor Highway Improvements

• This role provides the opportunity for hybrid working, allowing you to work either from home, subject to managerial approval, or from one of our offices.
• 30 days' annual leave (in addition to bank holidays).
• The contract offered is permanent and full-time (37 hours per week).

We’re working to improve the lives of people in Somerset – and you’ll be a key part of that. As a Principal Project Manager, you will manage a range of complex highway improvement projects commissioned to the service on a day-to-day basis within the remit and delegations provided by the project board. You will also line manage a team of Project Managers supporting the delivery of minor highway improvement projects. 

 Your day-to-day work will involve:

•    Developing and maintaining systems and processes that enable client commissions to be actioned and resourced efficiently and effectively. You’ll plan operational staffing requirements including maintaining a people resourcing schedule, and creating and maintaining a RAIDL log for each scheme to track risks, actions, issues, decisions, and lessons learned throughout project development and delivery, facilitating the development of risk mitigation plans and initiating corrective action when necessary.
•    Ensuring the smooth progression of schemes through feasibility appraisal, feasibility design, outline design, detailed design, and delivery phases, engaging with Early Contractor Involvement throughout scheme to ensure opportunities for value engineering, innovation and buildability are taken on board.
•    Performing a range of Client responsibilities under the Construction Design and Management Regulations (CDM) 2015 regulations.

We recognise the importance of a good balance between work and home life, so we do everything we can to accommodate flexible working, including working from home, with agreement from the manager. 

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

•    Level 6 qualification or has an equivalent professional accreditation.
•    Extensive and proven experience of: 
-    Application of Construction Design and Management Regulations 2015
-    Project management/ general contract management/ staff management and supervision.
•    Experience of managing programme schedules, tasks and resources and able to demonstrate sound judgement on statutory, contractual and commercial issues. 
•    Experience in leading or influencing teams and developing others. 

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.

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, 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 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 Kerry Jones on 01823 359462 or kerry.jones@somerset.gov.uk   

When completing your application/CV please provide your full employment history and ensure that any gaps in employment are explained. Please start with your current or most recent employment.

If you have all the information you need, just hit the apply button - we can’t wait to hear from you.