Highway Engineer

Kingston Advocacy Group; United Kingdom; Hybrid; GBP 35,000 - 50,000; Full time

Job summary

A local authority in the UK is seeking a Highway Engineer to join their design team. The successful candidate will support senior engineers, manage the delivery of highway and transportation schemes, and engage with various local stakeholders. Ideal candidates will have strong technical design knowledge, familiarity with highway design processes, and local knowledge. This role offers opportunities for career development in a supportive environment with a focus on community engagement.

Benefits

Generous annual leave entitlement of 25-32 days

Enhanced family leave policies

Access to learning and development courses

Discounts on local shops and services

Local Government Pension Scheme

Qualifications

• Enthusiastic to deliver a range of schemes and guide junior team members.
• Produce drawings and designs that adhere to the latest highway and transportation standards.
• Produce documents and reports in relation to design stages and analyze traffic data.

Responsibilities

• Support the Senior Engineer and Principal Engineer to manage the design team.
• Deliver a range of highway and transportation schemes.

Skills

Strong technical design knowledge

Ability to develop and lead meetings

Awareness of technical highway design processes

Local knowledge of Kingston and Sutton highway network

Education

Experience working at a local authority or a consultancy

Job description

About The Borough

Joining us, you get to work for not just one high performing London borough, but two. Kingston and Sutton councils share many services, with some teams focusing on one council but the majority serving both. This arrangement gives you multiple opportunities to learn from a wider range of activities and engage with two different political bodies.

We work flexibly in both the Kingston and Sutton offices and working at home or through flexible working patterns that allow you to tailor your work and personal life. We provide the equipment and tools to enable that flexibility and ask you to use it to be creative and ambitious in the services we deliver.

In Sutton, we are developing the London Cancer Hub, a world‑leading cancer research and treatment hub that brings together professionals from across different sectors to identify and test new treatments and therapies. In Kingston, we are undertaking the largest housing regeneration programme ever delivered in the borough, building new energy‑efficient housing that will transform some of our oldest council‑owned properties. Both boroughs have publicly committed to tackling the climate emergency, investing in new technologies and societal change to reduce carbon emissions.

You should choose Kingston and Sutton if you are looking for an opportunity that will challenge you to deliver more, support you to achieve personal ambitions, and expect you to put borough residents at the heart of what you do.

Kingston is a beautiful Royal borough with a historic setting on the banks of the Thames, excellent schools, and a bustling retail centre surrounded by open green spaces such as Richmond Park and Bushy Park. The council is controlled by a Liberal Democrat administration and has a council plan "Greener, Fairer, Safer, Together", which sets out a vision to be a vibrant, diverse and inclusive borough where residents are active, empowered, engaged and able to remain independent and resilient. The council engages with residents through a number of forums and events throughout the year and, like Sutton, plays a leading role in developing the South West Region of London.

Sutton is a well‑connected attractive part of London that boasts excellent schools, green and leafy open spaces, and a heritage that drives a thriving cultural offer through our museums and libraries. The council is controlled by a long‑established Liberal Democrat administration and has high ambitions set out in its corporate plan "Ambitious for Sutton", which will ensure Sutton remains a great place to live, work and raise a family. The council plays a leading role in a number of local partnerships and places great emphasis on engaging effectively with its residents, listening to local voices and making their message heard across London Government.

Ideal Candidate

• Enthusiastic to deliver a range of schemes and guide junior team members.
• Produce drawings and designs that adhere to the latest highway and transportation standards and our processes.
• Strong technical design knowledge and the ability to develop to lead in meetings with technical queries.
• Produce documents and reports in relation to design stages and analyse traffic data to propose interventions.
• Awareness of technical highway design processes such as Utilities C2, C3, CDM regulations, road safety audits, design stages and commissioning surveys.
• Previous experience working at a local authority or a consultancy is beneficial.
• Local knowledge of the Kingston and Sutton highway network.

The Design team includes a range of grades from Team Lead, Principal Engineer, Senior Engineer, Graduate, Technician and Apprentices. The wider Design & Delivery team is approximately 30 staff and includes Street Lighting, TMOs, Planned Maintenance, Vehicle Crossovers and Surveys.

About Us

Shape the future of our streets and communities. This is an exciting opportunity for a Highway Engineer to play an instrumental role within a progressive local authority delivering meaningful, highway schemes from concept to completion. You’ll be at the heart of the full project lifecycle – from early scoping and option‑making through detailed design, procurement and hands‑on construction site management – with real influence over outcomes on the ground. Working in a supportive environment, you’ll be part of a growing in‑house design team and a wider, highly collaborative highways service that brings together client, commissioning, reactive, permitting and inspection teams. Here, you’ll find a welcoming workplace built on respect, collaboration and community.

The Role

Support the Senior Engineer and Principal Engineer to manage the design team and deliver a range of highway and transportation schemes.

Our Offer to You

As an organisation that values and nurtures talent, we’re committed to helping you fulfil your potential and will offer you a supportive, friendly and collaborative environment to grow and develop your career and skills. We’re constantly striving to improve our ways of working so your ideas, however big or small, will be fully encouraged and supported by your colleagues and our dynamic, experienced management team.

Employees have access to a wide range of benefits to enable staff to achieve a work‑life balance, some of which include:

• Generous annual leave entitlement of 25‑32 days, plus bank holidays (pro‑rata if part‑time working hours apply) depending on service and grade.
• Enhanced maternity, paternity, shared parental, adoption and dependents leave.
• Three volunteering days per year in Kingston.
• Hybrid working (dependent on the role).
• Flexible and agile working arrangements using Google Chromebooks.
• Learning and development portal offering a range of courses.
• Discounts on a range of local shops, restaurants, gyms and leisure centres.
• Interest‑free season ticket loans.
• Local Government Pension Scheme.
• Bicycle loan facilities and cycle‑to‑work scheme.
• Zip car scheme.
• Confidential health & wellbeing and counselling support.

Application Process

Apply online outlining what skills, abilities and experience you can bring which makes you an ideal candidate for this role. Please refer to the requirements outlined in the job profile when completing your application and check your CV details have been uploaded correctly in the relevant sections.

We understand and recognise the benefits of using Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the workplace and are embracing AI where appropriate, to boost our productivity and streamline how we deliver our council services efficiently. However, we reserve the right to reject applications where it is apparent that AI‑generated content has been used in isolation and without personalised responses.

At Kingston we value authenticity and are looking for individuals who can clearly demonstrate their own skills, experience and motivation for the role that they are applying for and embrace and demonstrate our STAR values.

We are fully committed to removing barriers and enhancing the diversity of our workforce. As part of our award‑winning Diversity Programme we anonymise all applications to reduce conscious and unconscious bias. We encourage our interview panels to be as diverse as possible (age, cultural, neurodiverse, etc.) to reduce bias where possible.

Closing Date

The closing date is given as a guide. We reserve the right to close this vacancy once a sufficient number of applications have been received. It is strongly advised that you complete and submit your application as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.

Additional Information

We are proud to be a diverse and welcoming borough and strive to create a workforce which reflects the community we serve and instils a sense of belonging in our staff. We celebrate and respect differences and appreciate the value of having a diverse workforce, therefore we welcome applications from under‑represented groups.

To support our workers and their families we offer a range of family‑friendly, inclusive employment policies, flexible working arrangements, forums and inclusive staff networks that help drive our diversity agenda.

We are also proud to be a disability‑confident employer and guarantee to interview all disabled applicants who meet the minimum essential criteria for a role. As an accredited London Living Wage Employer, all our employees are guaranteed the London Living Wage regardless of their length or type of contract.

The UK has a points‑based immigration system affecting EU and non‑EU workers and sponsorship requirements. We advise checking the GOV.UK website for right‑to‑work guidance. Sponsorship availability varies and is subject to eligibility requirements and budget limitations. We cannot guarantee sponsorship for all roles and will evaluate sponsorship requests on a case‑by‑case basis.