Engineering & Design Lead
Egis Group · South Mimms, England, United Kingdom
Egis is a leading global consulting, construction engineering and operating firm. We work together with our clients, across every aspect of transport, energy and the built environment to build a more balanced, sustainable and resilient world. The Egis Group has over 50 years’ experience and a team of 25,000 employees in over 120 countries around the world. Joining our Group means, above all, sharing our values as a people-first company, strongly committed to sustainability and innovation.
In the UK we're proud to be delivering some of the most iconic projects which help connect people, protect our environment and meet emission reduction targets. From motorways to tramways, nuclear power plants to smart cities, clients choose us to help them solve their most complex challenges - delivering climate-responsible growth that meets the needs of communities, industry, and the planet.
ROLE PURPOSE
As Design & Engineering Lead, you will provide strategic leadership and overall accountability for the engineering, design, and technical governance functions across the National Highways Area 5 network, including the M25 and supporting trunk roads.
This role is responsible for defining and executing the engineering and design strategy that supports the safe, compliant, efficient, and sustainable management of one of the UK's most complex strategic road networks. Leading a multidisciplinary organisation, you will drive excellence in design delivery, asset stewardship, innovation, and technical assurance while ensuring alignment with customer objectives, regulatory requirements, and long-term investment plans.
The position provides oversight across all engineering and design portfolios, including Structures, Linear Assets (Pavements and Geotechnics), Tunnels M&E, Network Technology (including Street Lighting and Traffic Signals), CAD and Digital Engineering. You will lead and develop a team of specialist design engineers and design managers, fostering a high-performance culture focused on safety, collaboration, technical excellence, and continuous improvement.
A key aspect of the role is the strategic management of engineering activities across multiple business streams, including Capital Renewals, Maintenance, Design & Build (PDA), and National Highways Improvement Schemes. You will hold budget responsibility for the engineering and design across the business, ensuring effective workforce planning, resource utilisation, capability development, and supply chain engagement. A key expectation of the role is to identify and implement advances in technology, digital engineering, data analytics, and automation to improve operational efficiency, enhance decision-making, and drive continuous improvement throughout the asset lifecycle.
As the senior engineering authority for the business, you will be accountable for ensuring that all design activities are delivered safely, predictably, and in full compliance with applicable standards, legislation, and client requirements. This includes maintaining a comprehensive understanding of asset management strategies, long-term investment programmes, whole-life asset performance, scheme affordability, and contractual handback obligations. You will champion a whole-life asset management approach, ensuring that engineering solutions maximise asset performance and service life while minimising cost, risk, carbon impact, and disruption to the travelling public. Through robust governance processes, design assurance reviews, and early contractor involvement, you will promote the principles of Safety by Design, Design for Maintenance, constructability, and innovation across all stages of project development and delivery. The role carries overall accountability for fulfilling Principal Designer duties under CDM Regulations and ensuring that health, safety, and risk management considerations are fully embedded throughout the engineering lifecycle
As a recognised technical leader, you will maintain oversight of technical approvals, delegated authorities, and engineering assurance processes across all permanent works disciplines. You will ensure that technical governance frameworks remain effective, proportionate, and aligned with industry best practice.
The position requires strong stakeholder leadership, working closely with National Highways, Connect Plus, Framework Contractor partners, external consultants, regulatory bodies, and senior internal stakeholders to establish strategic alignment, influence investment decisions, and ensure the successful delivery of programme objectives.
In addition to leading planned investment activities, you will provide senior engineering leadership during network incidents and emergency response situations, directing technical decision-making and recovery strategies for damaged infrastructure assets and supporting the resilience of the wider network.
The role also provides strategic oversight of engineering surveys, digital asset management, and geospatial modelling, ensuring that high-quality data and emerging technologies are leveraged to support informed decision-making, future investment planning, and enhanced network performance.
Key Accountabilities
- Develop and deliver the engineering and design strategy for the National Highways Area 5 network.
- Provide leadership and direction to multidisciplinary engineering and design teams, driving a culture of excellence, innovation, and accountability.
- Act as the senior technical authority for engineering governance, assurance, and compliance.
- Ensure safe and compliant delivery of all design activities while meeting commercial, operational, and customer objectives.
- Lead strategic planning and prioritisation of engineering resources across multiple programmes and funding streams.
- Drive continuous improvement through digital transformation, innovation, and adoption of emerging technologies.
- Maintain accountability for Principal Designer (CDM) responsibilities across the portfolio.
- Influence key stakeholders and clients to shape investment strategies and long-term asset management decisions.
- Optimise whole-life asset performance while balancing risk, cost, sustainability, and customer impact.
- Lead engineering support for incident response, resilience planning, and emergency recovery operations.
- Oversee engineering survey strategies, asset intelligence, and geospatial modelling capabilities.
- Manage engineering budgets, workforce capability, succession planning, and organisational development.
Leadership Expectations
- Strategic and commercial leadership.
- Executive stakeholder engagement and influencing.
- Organisational capability development and succession planning.
- Technical governance and risk management.
- Financial accountability and resource optimisation.
- Innovation, digital transformation, and continuous improvement.
- Customer-focused decision making and operational excellence.
DIMENSIONS
FINANCIAL responsibility:
This role is responsible for design & engineering management across several hundred interventions each year, ranging in scale and complexity, totally c.£150m of annual construction cost.
The annual design forecast is ~£8-10m, split across internal design team staff costs and external design consultancy spend.
ORGANISATIONAL responsibility:
The role will lead the Design & Engineering design team, comprised of c45 design engineers and design team managers.
Several schemes are supported by external design resources to suit the workload requirements and the role manages performance of these strategic design partners.
INTERFACES
INTERNAL:
Asset Delivery Leads, Asset & Network Planning function (specifically Asset Investment and Technical Authority Teams), CPS Senior Leadership Team, Design & Engineering team members.
EXTERNAL:
Senior leaders from supply chain designers, other M25 Community members (particularly Framework contractors working for Connect Plus), National Highways stakeholder