Principal Engineer (Advanced Design and Signals)
| Posting date: | 13 August 2025 |
|---|---|
| Hours: | Full time |
| Closing date: | 12 September 2025 |
| Location: | leicestershire, LE3 8RA |
| Company: | Leicestershire County Council |
| Job type: | Permanent |
| Job reference: | 5905 |
Summary
Organisation: Leicestershire County Council
Work Location: County Hall, Glenfield, Leicester, LE3 8RA
Worker Category: Hybrid Worker
Salary: £49,221 - £53,826 per annum (plus Market Premia of Standard 10% of top of Grade)
Working Hours: 37 hours per week
Contract Type: Permanent
Closing Date: 07th September 2025
Interview Date(s): W/C 15th September 2025
An exciting opportunity has arisen to lead our Advanced Design and Signals Sub-Team, in the role of Principal Engineer. The successful applicant will take on a strategic leadership role within Advanced Design and Signals, part of the Transport Projects & Programmes service at Leicestershire County Council, one of the best performing councils in the country. We’ve achieved several decades of high performance, with our success recognised by national Government, industry awards and our residents.
You will join a motivated, friendly team of professionals committed to delivering public sector highway projects and programmes that offer best value for money.
As a Principal Engineer you will enjoy a competitive salary, as well as a generous benefits package, including pension, flexible working, and annual leave. You will also have access to a wide range of training and development opportunities, as well as support and guidance from your colleagues and managers.
Leicestershire County Council is committed to Smarter Working and understands the benefits of supporting employees to manage their work and life balance, whilst meeting the needs of the service. Our diverse team operates a Hybrid working approach partially working from our offices in County Hall, Glenfield and partially working from home. The successful applicant will also be expected to undertake site visits, when required.
About the Role
Your role will be to lead and manage a team of engineers, assistant engineers, senior technicians and technicians to deliver advanced design for highway projects and programmes, while actively managing our Traffic Signal assets.
You will be accountable for resource planning, team development and performance management, ensuring your team is equipped to succeed and that the team’s work is fully aligned with the Council’s strategies and policies. You will need to prioritise work within your team, adapting to changes in the department’s priorities whilst ensuring you are making best use of the resources you have.
You will be the key liaison between internal departments and external partners, ensuring effective communication and coordination across all projects.
You will be responsible for health & safety within your area and the wider Transport Projects & Programmes team including client, designer and principal designer roles under CDM 2015.
As part of the advanced design function, you will work closely with other teams in the department, including Policy and Strategy, Engineering Services, Traffic & Safety, and Sustainable Transport, interpreting technical data and providing reports that communicate information in a way that best suits your audience. You will contribute to the development of concept designs by reviewing and guiding proposals prepared by your team, offering strategic input and recommendations that support the delivery of County Council and Third Party funded schemes. Your oversight will help maintain alignment with the Highway Authority’s objectives and facilitate sustainable economic growth.
In the managing of our traffic signal assets, you will work closely with partners and suppliers to uphold standards in line with local and national guidance. This work includes bidding for funding, designing, installing, commissioning and maintaining assets through their whole life span using a variety of contracts and service agreements.
You will need to be innovative in your approach and understand sustainable design, value engineering, and be able to ensure your team can keep up with the fast pace of technological change.
This is not a hands-on engineering role, your primary focus will be on leading people, managing priorities, and driving strategic outcomes.
About You
To apply for this post, you must:
- Be able to organise, manage and control resources and assigned budgets to ensure projects are completed within approved cost and time targets.
- Be able to negotiate with local / central government, private organisations and stakeholders to facilitate necessary agreements.
- As a duty holder representing the LCC you must have knowledge and practical experience of the Construction (Design & Management) Regulations 2015 (CDM) to ensure all projects are carried out in a way that secures health and safety.
- Have excellent organisational skills with the ability to prioritise work within tight timescales whilst working under pressure.
- Have strong knowledge of emerging technologies and their application for Highways operations and works.
- Have experience of providing strategic and technical advice to Members, partners and stakeholders on programmes and projects to ensure appropriate communication and dialogue takes place, including writing reports.
- Be able to support the performance management of services and teams through the departmental business planning process to drive continuous improvement in the delivery of Departmental and Service outcomes; monitoring and reporting on progress as required
You must also have an understanding of, and commitment to, equality, diversity and inclusion.
In addition, we also expect you to share our commitment to our values and will ask you to evidence when you have demonstrated them as part of the selection process.
Reasonable adjustments will be considered for applicants with a disability.
This post is covered by Part 7 of the Immigration Act (2016) and therefore the ability to speak fluent English is an essential requirement for this role.
Interested in Flexible Working?
We are keen to support employees to balance their working life with other commitments. Therefore, wherever possible, we will consider working arrangements that suit an individual's personal circumstances whilst still meeting the needs of the Council. If you would like to discuss the possible flexible working options that might be applicable to this role, please contact the person named below. This may include requests for term-time working, part-time hours, compressed hours, flexible start and finish times, home/remote working, etc.
Every role within the Council has a defined working style which determines where they can work. The worker category applicable to this post is detailed in the above advert. You can find out more about our worker categories in the Our Working Styles page on our career site.
For more information or an informal discussion, please contact:
David Hilton-Barber, Team Manager - Transport Projects & Programmes
Email: David.Hilton-Barber@leics.gov.uk
Tel: 0116 3051371
How to Apply
Please apply sending us your CV as well a supporting statement, detailing how you meet the requirements of the post. The supporting statement should be no longer than 750 words. Leicestershire County Council is an inclusive organisation which is on a journey to embed and celebrate equality, diversity and inclusion at every level. We warmly welcome and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds, as having a diverse workforce with different perspectives and ideas is fundamental to our values and enriches the services we offer our communities. We particularly welcome applicants from Ethnically Diverse and LGBTQ+ communities and people with disabilities to create a balanced workforce and one that reflects the communities we serve. Applicants with a disability who meet the criteria listed in the 'About You' section above will be offered an interview under the Disability Confident Employer Scheme.
To apply for this job, please click on the apply button. You will need to upload a supporting statement as part of your application which explains how you meet the criteria listed in the 'About You' section above. For more information, see the How to Apply section on our career site.
We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if we receive sufficient applications for the role. Therefore, if you are interested, please submit your application as early as possible.
If you have any technical issues when trying to apply for this post or you want to request an application pack in an alternative format, please contact our Employee Service Centre by telephoning 0300 3030222 (select option 2) or raising a ticket via our online portal: https://emss.org.uk/support.
By applying for this post, you agree to our Terms and Conditions.
Proud member of the Disability Confident employer scheme