Principal highway steward -drainage

The Opportunity

We are looking for a Principal Highway Steward (Drainage) to join our Local Highway Operations Service. This is a County wide role based at our Clapham Highways Depot.

Salary: £44,075 to £47,181 per annum

Working Pattern: Full time 37 hour per week

Location: Clapham Depot, Worthing

As a Principal Highway Steward, you will work in our Routine Maintenance Team that manages functions associated with our green estate and drainage infrastructure right across the county.

You’ll manage a small, dedicated drainage team guiding them through the challenges of reactive and routine maintenance. Your focus will be contractual compliance around cyclical and reactive drainage cleansing, the investigation of complex issues across the network, and the delivery of small scale drainage repair schemes.

You’ll work closely with colleagues across highways and contractors in delivering key services to the desired standards and specifications. You will be expected to form and maintain collaborative and effective working relationships with the drainage contractor to ensure that work is programmed efficiently and delivered to the highest standard.

You’ll also be a trusted source of technical expertise, advising on small‑scale improvements and helping shape long‑term solutions that prevent recurring problems.

As a senior member of the team, you will have excellent customer service and be expected to support resolutions to complex issues. You will also be required to provide complex data in the form of reports to assist with internal and external communications.

You will act as mentor to stewards and technicians and will task manage day to day activity, advising resolutions to difficult highway problems and providing technical input where necessary to provide solutions.

You will manage contractor performance and budgets within our Lot 2 Drainage Maintenance Contract.

You will be required to take ownership of and contribute to service wide activities and/or cross-cutting projects.

What are we looking for?

• Excellent communication skills.
• Ability to negotiate and influence to explain complex highways issues to members of the public in response to queries.
• Ability to anticipate and identify problems, plan solutions, make sound pragmatic problem‑solving decisions and make the best use of available resources.
• Excellent proven written communication skills.
• Clear and decisive thinker, able to make accurate and timely decisions.
• Ability to remain calm under pressure and be flexible in working practices to allow changes.

Qualifications and/or experience:

• Degree in Engineering or a related discipline, or an equivalent qualification (e.g., HNC in Civil Engineering), or equivalent experience.
• New Roads and Street Works Supervision Qualification.
• Significant experience of Highways drainage/maintenance/engineering, demonstrating a high level of technical and theoretical knowledge or application over a range of scenarios.
• Experience of delivering a high‑quality maintenance and repair service within a Highways context, meeting objectives and indicators, and dealing with safety issues.
• Experience of line management.
• Thorough practical and theoretical knowledge of engineering/civil construction for planning improvements and repairs to the highway.
• Knowledge of the Highways Act and other relevant pieces of legislation, including health and safety.
• Full current drivers’ licence.
• Computer literate.

Working for us

As well as adding real value to our service users and our communities, we recognise our employees are central in being able to achieve this. We want to help support your development and provide a great place to work ensuring you can fulfil your full potential, with a range of benefits including:

• an excellent local government pension scheme
• generous holiday entitlement of 30 days (plus opportunity to buy additional leave)
• arrange of flexible working options, depending on your job role
• maternity, paternity, dependency and adoption leave
• volunteering opportunities
• training and development opportunities, including coaching and mentoring
• range of discounts giving staff access to hundreds of offers; groceries, travel, cinema tickets, days out, leisure activities, high street retailers and the opportunity to save over £1 000 a year through the West Sussex Choices benefits platform
• health and wellbeing benefits including access to our Employee Assistance Programme, Mental Health First Aiders and Voluntary Health Cash Plans

Further information

The reference number for this role is EIE01546.

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults. This post is subject to 3 years referencing and a health check.

Equity, inclusion and accessibility is very important to West Sussex County Council. We welcome and encourage applications from everyone, as this helps us build a diverse and talented workforce that reflects the communities we serve. We ensure our approach to recruitment is flexible and supportive to enable all applicants to be at their best and to ensure they have the best possible chance of success.

We operate a guaranteed interview scheme for applicants that have a disability, are a veteran or are a care leaver.