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Location: London or Birmingham
The role requires a minimum of three days per week office attendance.
About the Role
The Chief Technical Officer (CTO) is accountable for defining and assuring the technical integrity of the HS2 railway. The role sets the technical strategy, requirements, specifications, and standards required to enable delivery into service in line with government expectations.
Acting as the Technical Authority, the CTO ensures consistency, compliance, and integration across all technical disciplines, including environment, design, and consents, enabling delivery of HS2 in a cost-effective and timely manner. The role also acts as the Nominated Undertaker, ensuring compliant delivery against Environmental Minimum Requirements during construction and enabling the railway to be brought safely into use.
About HS2 Ltd
HS2 Ltd endeavours to ensure everyone working for us and with us feels included, thrives and achieves their full potential. In practice, this means we are positive and inclusive about making adjustments, providing flexible working, encouraging our staff networks to flourish and providing personal and professional development opportunities.
Key Responsibilities
Technical Strategy and Standards
- Act as the guiding mind for technical delivery of the railway, defining the technical strategy, requirements, and specifications aligned to DfT guidance and sponsor expectations, and oversee the development of evidence demonstrating the delivery of railway requirements.
- Establish and maintain technical requirements standards for the railway and supply chain from sponsors requirements to contract level.
- Ensure consistency, integrity, and alignment of technical decisions across the programme.
- Oversee railway level performance, including ownership of capability modelling.
- Act as Technical Authority, responsible for implementing strategies, standards, and specifications across environment, design, and consents.
Delivery Assurance and Integration
- Oversee technical assurance and quality to ensure the railway is deliverable, integrated, and operationally ready.
- Oversee the safety assurance and authorisations process to successfully operate and maintain the railway.
- Act as the Nominated Undertaker, ensuring delivery complies with Environmental Minimum Requirements during construction.
- Guide the application of standards and specifications across design, construction, and commissioning.
- Lead resolution of complex technical issues, including interfaces across systems and assets.
- Ensure integration across disciplines to deliver a fully functioning, safe, operable railway system that meet end-state requirements.
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Programme and Supply Chain Alignment
- Embed technical requirements within contracts and across the supply chain.
- Work with delivery, engineering, and programme teams to ensure alignment between technical and delivery outcomes.
- Ensure coordinated delivery across all technical and engineering disciplines.
Governance, Risk and Compliance
- Ensure compliance with sponsor requirements, technical regulations, and industry standards.
- Act as the Nominated Undertaker, ensuring delivery complies with Environmental Minimum Requirements during construction.
- Guide the application of standards and specifications across design, construction, and commissioning.
- Lead resolution of complex technical issues, including interfaces across systems and assets.
- Ensure integration across disciplines to deliver a fully functioning, safe, operable railway system that meet end-state requirements.
Leadership and Capability
- Provide leadership and direction to technical and engineering communities across HS2.
- Build technical capability and promote best practice across the organisation and supply chain.
- Champion continuous improvement, safety, and innovation in technical delivery.
About You
Skills
- Strategic technical leadership across large, complex programmes.
- Strong systems thinking and integration capability.
- Influential stakeholder engagement across government, regulators, and delivery partners.
- Ability to resolve complex technical challenges and make risk-based decisions.
- Clear communication of technical concepts to senior stakeholders.
- Leadership of multi-disciplinary engineering and technical teams.
Knowledge
- Engineering, technical standards, and systems integration for major rail or infrastructure programmes.
- Regulatory and sponsor requirements, including DfT guidance.
- Environmental, design, and consents frameworks, including Environmental Minimum Requirements.
- Technical assurance, governance, and risk management practices.
- Infrastructure delivery lifecycle from design through to commissioning and operations.
Type of Experience
- Chartered Engineer (CEng) UK / equivalent appropriate professional institution with significant experience in Civil Engineering.
- Significant senior technical leadership experience in major infrastructure or rail programmes.
- Proven track record delivering complex, integrated systems into operation.
- Experience setting technical strategy, standards, and assurance frameworks.
- Experience working with government, regulators, and supply chains.
- Demonstrated leadership of large engineering and technical communities.
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The post-holder is expected to behave at all times in a manner consistent with the HS2 values of Safety, Leadership, Integrity, and Respect. It is expected that you will actively promote and embed Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) in all your work and support and comply with all organisational initiatives, policies and procedures on EDI.
We ask for a variety of detail in your online application, however we perform the first assessment of suitability for a role based solely on the information in your CV. In a further development of our efforts to create a more diverse workforce, your CV will be anonymised and personal information will be removed during the first stage of the application review. This removes bias from the process and makes it even more important that you attach an updated word version of your CV for each new application ensuring you include evidence directly related to the criteria in the job advert. Watch this video on how we remove bias in the recruitment process: Removing bias in the recruitment process - YouTube.
Any applications received after the closing date will not be considered.
About HS2 Ltd
High Speed 2 (HS2 Ltd) will be the UK’s new high-speed rail network. As well as improving capacity, the new scheme will shorten journey times between a number of Britain’s major population centres, boost the economy, and create thousands of jobs.
HS2 Ltd will create a skills legacy and develop a diverse range of talent. We aim to be a leader in EDI practice by creating a safe & inclusive working environment for all our staff - living our values of Safety, Respect, Integrity, and Leadership.
In practice, this means we are positive and inclusive about making adjustments, providing flexible working, encouraging our staff networks to flourish, and providing personal and professional development opportunities.
HS2 Ltd is also a safety-critical organisation. Employees are required to ensure reasonable care of their own and others’ health and safety by taking personal responsibility for working to our ‘Safe at Heart’ programme principles and following safe working procedures at all times.
HS2 Ltd endeavours to ensure everyone working for us and with us feels included, thrives, and achieves their full potential.
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