The Construction Index Ltd
Associate Director - Highways Engineering
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Salary: £70000 - £85000 per annum
Type: Full Time
Region: UK - North West
Town/City: Manchester, Greater Manchester
Posted: 27/07/2026
Reference: BBBH5285_1785144872
Job Description
Associate Director - Highway Design
Location: Flexible / Hybrid
Salary: Competitive + Excellent Benefits
Are you an experienced Highway Design professional looking to take the next step in your career? We're working with a highly respected engineering consultancy looking to appoint an Associate Director to lead the delivery and growth of its Highway Design team.
This is an excellent opportunity for an ambitious leader who enjoys combining technical excellence with business development, team leadership, and client relationship management. You'll play a key role in delivering major highway, active travel, public realm, and infrastructure projects while helping to shape the future direction of the team.
The Role
As an Associate Director, you'll lead the successful delivery of a wide variety of highway engineering projects from concept through to detailed design. You'll work closely with both public and private sector clients, oversee multidisciplinary teams, and help drive business growth across the UK.
This role offers the opportunity to influence project delivery, mentor engineers, develop client relationships, and secure new work while managing a portfolio of exciting infrastructure schemes.
Key Responsibilities
- Lead the delivery of highway engineering, traffic, active travel, and public realm projects from concept through to detailed design.
- Manage multidisciplinary design teams, ensuring projects are delivered on time and within budget.
- Build and maintain strong relationships with new and existing clients.
- Identify new business opportunities and prepare fee proposals, bids, and tenders.
- Take ownership of project delivery, commercial performance, and technical quality.
- Mentor, support, and develop engineers and technicians within the team.
- Provide technical leadership across complex highway and infrastructure projects.
- Work collaboratively with other disciplines to deliver integrated engineering solutions.
- Ensure designs comply with relevant UK standards and local authority requirements.
- Contribute to the continued development and growth of the Highway Design business.
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About You
We're looking for someone with a strong technical background in highway engineering alongside proven leadership and business development experience.
You Will Ideally Have
- Significant experience delivering highway and civil engineering design projects within the UK.
- Experience leading traffic, highway, active travel, and public realm schemes.
- Strong knowledge of Section 278 and Section 38 highway approvals.
- Experience working with UK highway design standards and local authority requirements.
- Proficiency with AutoCAD, Civil 3D, and other relevant highway design software.
- Experience working within BIM and Common Data Environment (CDE) workflows.
- A track record of leading multidisciplinary teams and mentoring engineers.
- Strong commercial awareness with experience winning work and developing client relationships.
- Excellent communication, presentation, and stakeholder management skills.
- Degree qualified in Civil Engineering or a related discipline.
- Chartered Engineer status (or working towards) would be advantageous.
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What's on Offer?
- Competitive salary and comprehensive benefits package.
- Hybrid and flexible working arrangements.
- Opportunity to lead high-profile infrastructure and regeneration projects.
- Clear progression to senior leadership.
- Support for continued professional development and chartership.
- Collaborative and supportive working environment.
- Opportunity to play a key role in the continued growth of an established Highway Design team.
If you're an experienced Highway Design professional ready to take on a leadership role where you can influence project delivery, mentor talented engineers, and help grow a successful business, we'd love to hear from you.
For more information, please contact Will Herman on 07581 619823.
Aldwych Consulting
Aldwych Consulting values diversity and promotes equality. No terminology in this advert is intended to discriminate against any of the protected characteristics that fall under the Equality Act 2010. We encourage and welcome applications from all sections of society and are happy to discuss reasonable adjustments and/or additional arrangements as required to support your application.
Candidates must be eligible to live and work in the UK.
For the purposes of the Conduct Regulations 2003, when advertising permanent vacancies we are acting as an Employment Agency, and when advertising temporary/contract vacancies we are acting as an Employment Business.
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