About the job
At National Highways, we're responsible for some of the most iconic and strategically important structures in the country. We're looking for a Head of Specialist Bridges to provide leadership across our specialist bridges portfolio in the South West region, helping to ensure these nationally significant assets remain safe, resilient and available for the millions of people who rely on them every day. This is your opportunity to make a lasting impact on critical infrastructure, supporting communities, businesses and the economy.
Reporting to the Regional Director, you’ll provide strategic leadership across a complex portfolio of nationally significant assets, working with multidisciplinary teams and supply chain partners to deliver safe, reliable and efficient services. With accountability for investment programmes totalling approximately £47m per annum across capital, operational and maintenance activities, you’ll ensure value for money while supporting high performance, continuous improvement and long-term asset resilience.
You will:
- Lead the development and delivery of maintenance programmes and long-term asset strategies for National Highways' specialist bridges portfolio, ensuring safe, reliable and customer-focused outcomes.
- Oversee asset planning and investment activity, translating safety, customer and economic priorities into commercially viable plans aligned to organisational objectives.
- Encourage innovation in the management of specialist and large-span bridges, supporting the adoption of new technologies, materials and engineering practices to improve performance and resilience.
- Ensure effective management of asset, operational and safety risks, supporting investment decisions that optimise whole-life value and network availability.
- Build trusted relationships with internal teams, suppliers, government bodies and external stakeholders, fostering a culture of safety, service excellence and continuous improvement.
About you
- Proven track record of providing strategic leadership across asset management, service delivery and financial planning activities within highways structures and infrastructure.
- Ability to build effective relationships, bring people together and work collaboratively with a broad range of internal and external stakeholders to achieve shared objectives.
- Customer-focused, with sound understanding of the political environment and ability to navigate complex challenges and competing priorities towards positive outcomes.
- Commercially minded, with the ability to manage complex contracts and work in partnership with suppliers to deliver successful outcomes.
- Knowledge of statutory duties and regulatory requirements, including the Highways Act, Road Traffic Regulation Act and CDM Regulations.
About us
Here at National Highways, we manage and improve England’s motorways and major A roads, helping our customers have safer, smoother and more reliable journeys. Our priorities are safety, customers and delivery, and at the core of this, are our values of passion, integrity, safety, teamwork and ownership.
Operations is at the heart of keeping the strategic road network moving and ensuring our customers get the best possible experience when using our roads.
We address over 39,000 customer enquiries every month, plan and deliver all maintenance activities on the network, drive efficiencies and improvements across our systems and roads, and respond to incidents across 4,500 miles of motorways and major A-roads that we manage. All to make sure National Highways customers have safer, smoother, and more reliable journeys.
External candidates will be offered a starting salary at the lower end of the pay scale, while current employees will be appointed in accordance with our established pay policy.
We are committed to creating a diverse environment and welcome applicants from all backgrounds.
