Senior Technical Advisor, Transport Infrastructure Delivery in Leeds

A minimum of 60% of your working time should be spent at your principal workplace, although requirements to attend other locations for official business, or carry out detached duty in another DfT workplace, will also count towards this level of attendance. This role will require travel to other DfT locations and site visits within the UK on a sporadic basis.

We recognise the challenges that people with protected characteristics may experience on the job market and in their career progression. We are fully committed to being an inclusive employer and ensuring equal opportunities. We are keen to make our workforce as diverse as possible, and we hope to attract applications from underrepresented groups, including ethnic minorities, people with a disability, and people with gender-diverse identities.

DfT’s Infrastructure Efficiency and Engineering (IEE) team is an established Departmental centre of technical expertise operating within the central Portfolio & Project Delivery Directorate (PPDD). Led by the Chief Engineer, the team is formed of highly skilled engineers and project managers to support efficient and effective delivery of DfT’s projects and programmes across all transport modes.

As Senior Technical Advisor you will influence the Department’s ambitious portfolio of transport projects, working as an integral part of the Directorate and with wider project teams to ensure that major projects are delivered efficiently and effectively. The role provides a challenging and rewarding opportunity to apply your technical skills to influence some of Europe’s largest transport infrastructure schemes; presenting a once-in-generation opportunity to unlock transformational economic benefits for the country.

Responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

• Using your engineering skills and experience to proactively challenge design specification and assumptions, providing critical client intelligence to senior decision makers.
• Examining technical ALB evidence for advice to Government and leading on the drafting of briefings and papers to Ministers, Boards (including the DfT Investment, Portfolio and Delivery Committee) and senior leaders.
• Working alongside technical, sponsor, and analytical colleagues to scrutinise emerging cost estimates to advise major project sponsor teams on their robustness and efficiency position (e.g. by developing cost benchmarking analysis in accordance with Infrastructure and Projects Authority Best Practice etc.).
• Developing and embedding processes for continuously monitoring and improving the cost and schedule efficiency position of major projects at various lifecycle stages.
• Actively building IEE’s and DfT’s wider capability in better understanding the cost implications of project options early in the project lifecycle (including ‘should’ or ‘could’ costs).

To thrive in this role, you will:

• Have experience working as an engineer on major infrastructure projects (particularly client side), with an emphasis on cost/schedule control, robust evidence gathering, and cross-disciplinary working.
• Have had close involvement in the development of innovative and technically complex infrastructure projects.
• Have experience of generating evidence-based reports and presentations and communicating their findings to technical and non-technical audiences at a senior level.
• Be a qualified engineer with significant experience working in the transport infrastructure sector, particularly in a client-side project delivery environment.

Being part of our brilliant Civil Service means you will have access to a wide range of fantastic benefits. We offer generous annual leave, attractive pension options, flexible working, inclusive working environments and much more to support a healthy work/life balance.