Group Manager Highways (Contracts and Commissioning)

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About the role

Join our journey, make a difference!

We have an exciting opportunity for a driven and self motivated Highways Manager, to join our Highways Delivery Service at North Northamptonshire Council. The team oversees and manages our Highway Term Maintenance Contract and its Street Lighting PFI, as well as delivering wider highway services, including network / traffic management, highway regulations and customer liaison.

The Highways team provides a wide range statutory services that all residents of North Northamptonshire use. The team is responsible for providing a safe road network that operates efficiently and effectively, providing strategic direction for the future development of highways assets, public transport, active travel and all road users, being mindful of budget constraints, legislation and the sustainability agenda.

This is a key role within the Councils Highway Services. The new Unitary Authority was formed in 2021 and the Term maintenance Service started in 2022. As such there are real opportunities to help shape and develop Councils services in order to deliver efficiencies, best value and excellence.

What will you be doing?

Reporting to the Head of Highways Delivery, this is an opportunity to make a real difference in a civil engineering environment. The role involves leading a multi-discipline team of highway professionals, delivering and continuously improving a wide range of highway services within a Unitary Authority environment. You will work closely with our Term Maintenance Contract partners and will be responsible for building strong relationships with elected members, wider Council service areas, other stakeholders and local groups around North Northamptonshire.

As part of the Highways senior management team, you will have input into the overall management and development of the highway maintenance contract, the implementation of highway strategies and policies as well as reviewing any proposed Departures from Standard on highway schemes and signing of delegated decision reports in relation to Traffic Regulation Orders.

For further information or to discuss the post please contact Jonathan Pearson, Head of Highways Delivery at jonathan.pearson@northnorthants.gov.uk.

About you

You will be an experienced highways manager with specific knowledge of highways maintenance and management, with an understanding of the associated legislation such as New Roads and Street Works Act, Highways Act, Traffic Management Act etc; highways maintenance and design techniques; network coordination solutions, as well as the regulation, licencing and Definitive Map and highway searches and records functions.

Working with Councillors, Parish and Town Councils will be part of your experience to facilitate working with them via the Community Liaison team, in order to resolve problems and to develop and deliver local improvement schemes.

Your management skills will enable you to develop services in this field, along with having excellent budget control and general financial & commercial management skills. Furthermore, you will ensure that the Highways service has a commercially astute client team that is continually upskilled.

You will also possess a customer focussed outlook to meet the needs and demands of the residents of North Northamptonshire as well as experience of dealing with Councillors and external organisations at a high level.

You will also have:

• Experience and qualification(s) in a highways / civil engineering / a contract management discipline
• Experience of managing a New Engineering Contract (NEC)
• Experience of managing high performing teams
• Understanding of local government and the civil engineering sector
• Experience in preparing and presenting reports on all aspects of the service to Councillors, senior officers and in public meetings.
• An ability to create relationships across a diverse stakeholder base to achieve the best possible outcomes.

Our benefits

Here at North Northamptonshire Council, we're transforming for the better, using all our creativity and imagination to create the best life for our local people.

You'll find that we have a wide range of careers that may be more surprising than you think!

Why choose us?

We offer a vibrant working environment with:

• a competitive salary
• a pension scheme, where we pay a significant contribution on top of your contribution. It provides life cover and ill-health protection.
• lots of opportunities to develop your skills, knowledge and potential in a large unitary council
• generous leave entitlement (28 days, rising to 33 days) and bank holidays, plus the option to buy up to an extra 10 days
• hybrid and flexible working arrangements, where practicable for service needs to help you with a healthy work-life balance.

We provide a range of great benefits such as an Employee Assistance Programme, an Employee Benefits Scheme, wellbeing support, travel rates at HMRC rates, as well as supporting a range of active Employee Network Groups.

About us

Our Values and Behaviours

Our values define who we are and how we operate, by forming the foundation for how we interact with our customers, colleagues and provide our services. They are also at the forefront of our decision making and delivery and are:

Customer-focused
Respectful
Efficient
Supportive
Trustworthy

Our Key Commitments

Our key commitments help ensure that the priorities we make, now and in the future, maintain the necessary breadth of focus in those areas that we believe matter most.

We are proud to be a recognised Disability Confident Employer and is committed to providing an inclusive recruitment process and will offer an interview to disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria for the role.

North Northamptonshire Council re-signed the Armed Forces Covenant in June 2024 which highlights the Council's pledge to support the Armed Forces community. The council obtained the silver status award for the Defence Employer Recognition Scheme (ERS) and we are now currently working towards achieving Gold status.

We aim to be a carbon neutral Council by 2030.

Further information can be found at Jobs and careers | North Northamptonshire Council (northnorthants.gov.uk)