Principal Civil Asset Consultant

Location: Croydon 
Recruiter contact: Ainsley Anstess

Mott MacDonald is a global engineering, management, and development consultancy with over 20,000 employees across more than 50 countries and 140+ offices. 

We work across incredible global industries, delivering exciting work that is defining our future and making an important societal impact in the communities we serve. Our people power our performance – we succeed when they do. With countless opportunities to collaborate, learn, and grow, the possibilities for excellence are as varied as every individual. 

Whether you want to grow as a subject matter expert or broaden your experience with roles across our international community, you’re surrounded by global specialists who want to combine their expertise and champion you to be your best. As a proudly employee-owned business, we benefit our clients, our communities, and each other, investing in creating the right space for everyone to feel empowered, included, and valued. Whatever your ambition, Mott MacDonald is where people come to be brilliant.

About the business unit 
We help conceive, drive, and implement transport solutions for cities, regions, and asset owners/operators around the globe. From preparing the business case and​ advising on related issues - such as revenue, procurement, and environmental legislation - to delivering the completed infrastructure and helping maintain it. Our planning, engineering, environmental and management skills cover the whole project cycle. We play a major role in developing and delivering the Global Transport Sector Strategy.

Job Description
As a Principal Civil Asset Consultant in our Special Services team, you will be joining and helping to lead a unique and talented multi-disciplinary team that includes civil, structural and geotechnical engineers, structural analysts, materials engineers, data analysts and information and asset management specialists. We work on a wide range of projects that span the full lifecycle of civil engineering assets in the UK road, rail, water and energy sectors in the UK and beyond, including tunnels, bridges, retaining walls, culverts, piers and jetties, geotechnical and drainage assets. We contribute to the design of new assets and advise on the management of existing assets, involving the collection and analysis of construction, condition and performance data, specialist structural investigation, testing and assessment, and the development of asset management processes, tools and technologies. 

Job Profile 
Mott MacDonald’s Special Services team is currently recruiting for a Principal Civil/Structural Asset Consultant to join our Special Services team, working principally from our Croydon, Sheffield or Birmingham offices. We help major UK infrastructure owners such as Network Rail and Highways England to develop technical solutions to meet their needs and optimise the value of their civil engineering assets, supporting them in achieving their organisational goals. Our projects are highly varied, for example we are currently:

• Working with the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) to develop an automated asset inspection system based on ‘computer vision’ and automated defect recognition and classification algorithms;
• Writing industry best practice guidance on civil engineering asset management and new technologies for investigating structures;
• Investigating a variety of ageing structures, including tunnels, bridges, culverts and jetties, to understand their current condition, capacity and future deterioration, and developing options for extending their service life;
• Developing data-driven deterioration models, risk assessment and asset management processes for structures and geotechnical assets on the UK rail and road networks;
• Updating National Highways’s online GIS-based management system for their geotechnical and drainage assets, a system that we originally created and have managed for them since the early 2000s. 

This is an opportunity to be part of a team with truly cross-disciplinary, cross-sector expertise and approach that includes specialists in a diverse range of disciplines including civil and structural engineering, materials technology, geotechnical engineering, data and asset management and analytics.

We are problem-solvers by nature, always looking for new challenges, and the wide range of backgrounds and skills in our team allows us to take on some of the most technically demanding, interesting and varied work in civil engineering. We question and challenge established ways of doing things and solve new problems by working from first principles, applying new and emerging technologies and collaborating with a range of external innovators on research and development projects.
As a senior member of our team you will be responsible for the creation, technical leadership and management of projects that include developing strategies, plans, processes and tools for managing risk and optimising the value of civil engineering assets. You will use your engineering domain knowledge and the experience you have gained, to solve problems and develop solutions for the many and varied technical challenges that come our team’s way, ensuring that the work we do has a sound technical basis and delivers on our client’s requirements. In all of this you will use your knowledge of how civil engineering assets perform as part of wider infrastructure systems and critically appraise requirements to ensure that the work we do is practical and deliverable and adds value in the wider context of our clients’ businesses. 

Other responsibilities will include:

• Guiding and supporting the development of the technical capabilities of our team, line management and mentoring of individuals and setting and maintaining high professional and technical standards.
• Developing and growing sound and trusting relationships with external and internal clients to understand their needs and help support their businesses by providing our services.
• Developing and scoping solutions in response to invitations to tender and other opportunities, preparing and reviewing proposals including technical and commercial aspects.
• Managing and leading the technical and commercial spects of projects, taking responsibility for all aspects of their delivery and peformance. 
• Producing, checking and reviewing technical deliverables to ensure they meet client needs, quality standards and contracted obligations.
• Supporting innovation and the use of technology to enhance the delivery, efficiency and quality of our work and the services we offer to clients.

Candidate Specification:
The role would suit someone who has sound civil/structural engineering technical and problem-solving skills and would like to apply them to a highly diverse portfolio of projects. You are interested in new developments and technologies and how they can be applied in civil engineering and asset management. You enjoy challenge and diversity, working in a highly technical environment, across a variety of asset and construction types and materials in various sectors and for a range of clients. You will have strong inter-personal, influencing, presentation and report writing skills and be comfortable working collaboratively with and coordinating the input of colleagues with different skillsets, taking responsibility as a technical leader or a team member as the need arises. You’ve previously worked on multiple concurrent and multi-discplinary commissions and have proven client engagement and project management skills. You’re also confident in representing the company to clients and working with a range of project stakeholders. In addition to this you have previously managed small teams of engineers and have mentored or trained members of the wider engineering team.

You will have experience of planning, executing and interpreting the results of inspections and investigations of a variety of civil engineering assets, appraising their condition and performance and developing strategies, detailed proposals and designs for their enhancement and life-extension. Additionally you will be familiar with asset management principles and bring your understanding and knowledge of the needs of asset-owning client organisations to all the work that you do, so that the solutions you develop are practical and add value in that context.

You will also be able to demonstrate the following:

• A degree or post-graduate degree (2.1 + or equivalent) in Civil Engineering or other STEM subject
• Chartered with a relevant professional institution (ICE, IStructE, IET or similar)
• Experience in the inspection, investigation, monitoring and assessment of civil engineering structures, an understanding of how they perform, deteriorate and fail and how they can be protected, maintained and repaired
• Good interpersonal skills with the ability to engage and build professional relationships with clients, peers and other organisations

Additional desirable skills and experience:

• Specialist knowledge of the management of civil engineering assets in one or more types of infrastructure, e.g. transport (highways/railways), utilities, energy, defence. 
• Developing asset management plans and strategies for individual assets or groups of assets.
• Applied research, development and the use of technology to gather and analyse data. 
• Working with asset data to create models and practical tools for asset management and decision-making processes.

UK Immigration

Mott MacDonald Ltd. are not currently offering sponsorship to candidates under the Skilled Worker visa route in the UK. This decision is as a consequence of the changes made to the Skilled Worker route by the UK Government in April 2024. We continue to welcome applications from candidates who are eligible for alternative immigration routes in the UK, that do not require sponsorship as a Skilled Worker now or in future.

Equality, diversity, and inclusion 

We put equality, diversity, and inclusion at the heart of our business, seeking to promote fair employment procedures and practices to ensure equal opportunities for all. We encourage individual expression in our workplace and are committed to creating an inclusive environment where everyone feels they can contribute.

Accessibility

We want you to perform your best at every stage in the recruitment process. If you are disabled or need any support to enable you to apply or attend an interview, please contact us at reasonable.adjustments@mottmac.com and we will talk to you about how we can support you.

Agile working  

We are happy to talk openly about flexible working and how we can support your responsibilities beyond the workplace. 

We offer some fantastic benefits including:

Health and wellbeing

• Private medical insurance for all UK colleagues.
• Health cash plan to support you with every day health costs and treatments.
• Access to Peppy, providing free support from menopause experts for all UK colleagues.
• A variety of wellbeing support is available through our comprehensive wellbeing program, including access for you and your family.
• Ability to flex your salary to opt into a wide range of health benefits, many of which can be extended to your family too.

Financial wellbeing

• We match employee pension contributions between 4.5% and 7%.
• Life assurance equal up to 4 x your basic salary, with an option to increase the level of cover to 6 x your salary.
• Our income protection scheme provides a financial benefit, as well as absence and return to work support due to long-term illness or injury.
• Flexible benefits, including increased life assurance cover, critical illness insurance, payroll saving and will writing.
• As an independently owned business we share the financial success of the business with all our colleagues in various ways including annual bonus schemes.

Lifestyle

• A minimum of 33-35 days holiday each year, inclusive of public holidays and dependent on level, with the ability to buy or sell leave through our flexible benefits programme.
• Holiday entitlement increased to a minimum of 35 days after 5 years’ service.
• Variety of employee saving schemes and discounts from high-street retailers.

 Enhanced family and carers leave

• Enhanced family leave policies, including 26 weeks paid maternity and adoption leave, and two weeks paid paternity/partner leave.
• Our shared parental leave matches maternity leave meaning we pay up to 24 weeks at full pay.
• Up to five additional days leave are provided for those with significant caring responsibilities, two of which are paid.

Learning and development

• Primary annual professional institution subscription.
• A broad range of opportunities to enhance both technical and soft skills through mentoring, formal training, and self-development options.

Networks, communities, and social outcomes

• Join a wide range of groups including our Advanced Employee Networks which support our LGBTQ+, gender, race and ethnicity, disability, and parents/carers communities.
• Make a difference within our communities through our social outcomes.

Apply now, or for more information about our application process, click here.