Highway Design Engineer: Hybrid Role with Growth & Training in Guildford

The starting salary range for this role is 33,552 to 41,585 per annum (subject to annual pay award negotiations), based on a 36-hour working week. This role sits within our Professional Development programme and spans three linked grades within our pay grade structure. The role is intended to develop successful candidates with training and experience provided to ensure progress. You will be required to participate in a formal training development plan to develop your skills and experience and to gain an appropriate technical or professional qualification. Your starting salary would depend on your existing level of expertise. Salary progression is linked to progress through the formal training development plan.

The role is part of our high performing Design Office, based in Guildford, with the opportunity of working out of other SCC offices. It is a hybrid role, offering a flexible mix of home, office, and site-based working, tailored to the needs of the projects you'll be supporting. You can expect to be in the office or on site approximately at least two days per week.

Our Offer to You

• 26 days' holiday, rising to 28 days after 2 years' service and 31 days after 5 years' service
• Option to buy up to 10 days of additional annual leave
• A generous local government salary related pension
• Up to 5 days of carer's leave and 2 paid volunteering days per year
• Paternity, adoption and dependents leave
• An Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) to support health and wellbeing
• Learning and development hub where you can access a wealth of resources
• Wellbeing and lifestyle discounts including gym, travel, and shopping
• A chance to make a real difference to the lives of our residents

About the Role

Place is a large and complex directorate with responsibilities including facilitating safe and reliable journeys, shaping places for our customers, achieving sustainability and climate changes targets and always putting the customer first while providing excellent value for taxpayer money. Reporting directly to one of our Design Leads, you will be a technical professional looking to grow in your skills and experience. You will be part of a team designing and delivering infrastructure projects ranging from minor speed limit changes all the way up to multi-million corridor improvement schemes. Active Travel is a major theme in our programmes - we are particularly interested in candidates with experience designing schemes to LTN 1-20 standard. We work in close partnership with a number of internal teams and also with our term contractors Ringway and M Group.

You will need to demonstrate your experience of design, construction supervision and project / contract management, and will have the opportunity to develop this experience if successful. You should have some experience of the relevant principles, practices and procedures in highway design, specification and standards, bills of quantities and item coverage, engineering construction, contract and project management. As part of the selection process you will be asked about the projects you have been involved with, and your contribution to ensure that projects are delivered to time, quality and contract requirements, and that best practice standards were met.

Shortlisting Criteria

In order to be considered for shortlisting, your application will clearly evidence the following skills and align with our behaviours:

• Your design engineering expertise, including evidence of your AutoCAD ability, along with relevant highway design packages.
• The range and type of highway infrastructure schemes you have successfully designed and implemented, or that you have assisted in the design and implementation.
• Your knowledge of engineering design related legislation, practices and procedures.
• Your relevant industry qualifications plus any Membership of any professional bodies.
• To be considered for this role you must be eligible to be accepted onto an HNC Civil Engineering course or will already have achieved HNC or above qualification in Civil Engineering.
• Competency in the use of MS Office tools including Word and Excel.
• Excellent communication and organisational skills.
• Full clean driving license and access to a vehicle.

The job advert closes at 23:59 on Sunday 24th May with interviews to follow.

Local Government Reorganisation (LGR)

Surrey County Council is undergoing Local Government Reorganisation, moving from a two-tier system to two new unitary councils in April 2027. If you are employed by Surrey on 1st April 2027, your role will transfer with current terms and conditions to one of the new organisations, supporting local devolution and greater powers for our communities.

Our Commitment

We are a disability confident employer which means if you have shared a disability on your application form and have evidenced you meet the minimum criteria, we guarantee you an interview. We are committed to supporting you with any adjustments you need, we value inclusion and warmly welcome you to join and help build a workplace where everyone belongs.