Senior Structures Engineer ( Rail Bridges)

Our client is recruiting a Senior Structures Engineer to join a specialist technical team that sits at the heart of delivery on one of Europe's largest infrastructure programmes. When the main works contractors encounter a structural or bridge engineering problem they cannot resolve, this team is where it goes. Your day-to-day purpose is to work through those challenges, provide technically sound answers and support the decisions that keep construction moving.

The team acts as the technical authority for departures across the civil structures discipline. That means you will be working alongside senior engineers on critical engineering decisions, assessing whether proposed solutions meet the programme requirements, and contributing your judgement at the point where it matters most. Across bridges, retaining walls, culverts, cut-and-cover tunnels and other civil structures, the team covers the full structural scope. You will need to read and understand complex designs quickly, identify where the engineering challenge actually sits and work towards a resolution. This is problem-solving work at the sharp end of a live construction programme.

You will provide technical advice and assurance to designers and contractors, assess proposed solutions against applicable standards and requirements, and contribute to the governance processes through which technical departures are reviewed and decided. Where new or evolving conditions on site create questions that existing standards do not fully answer, you will help to develop the position that the programme takes. Working across the four main works contractors, you will manage several queries and challenges concurrently, and you will need to bring clarity to situations that are often technically complex and commercially pressured.

What you need to bring
Your background is in bridge engineering, and you will have built genuine depth in that discipline, to the point where you can read a design, identify where the problem lies and form a technically defensible view on how to address it. Experience across a range of civil structures, including retaining walls, culverts and cut-and-cover tunnels, will strengthen your application. You will have worked on major infrastructure programmes where design and construction were running in parallel and where engineering queries were a live and constant part of the work.

You will understand UK construction regulations including CDM requirements and have working knowledge of the Common Safety Method for risk evaluation and assessment. Commercial awareness is important. You will understand the relationship between technical decisions, programme cost and schedule, and you will be capable of reaching solutions that are sound on all three counts. Chartered Engineer status or active membership of a relevant professional institution is expected, though equivalent experience will be considered.

Useful to have
Experience on high-speed rail or comparable major rail infrastructure, particularly in a client-side or technically accountable capacity. A background that includes supporting or leading technical assurance processes on large civil structures programmes. Familiarity with technical governance and departure management processes on complex infrastructure schemes. Experience engaging with multi-disciplinary teams and external stakeholders on technically contentious issues.
The role can be based in Birmingham or London.