Senior Civil Engineer – Highways, Drainage and Infrastructure

Senior Civil Engineer – Highways, Drainage and Infrastructure | Belfast

Join a 40-person Highways, Civil & Transport team delivering technically challenging civil engineering projects across Northern Ireland. This is an opportunity to apply your highways and drainage design expertise across major roads, port upgrades, waterfront regeneration, active travel and wider infrastructure schemes.

Purpose & Scope of the Role

As Senior Civil Engineer, you will provide technical leadership and manage day-to-day design delivery across highways, drainage and associated infrastructure projects, from feasibility and planning through detailed design, tender preparation, construction support and handover.

You will coordinate multidisciplinary inputs, prepare technical reports and design documentation, and help ensure safe, accurate and robust solutions aligned with DMRB and MCHW standards. Working within a wider multidisciplinary office of approximately 300 professionals, you will collaborate with environmental, structural, wastewater, flooding and other specialist teams.

Projects typically range from £1 million to £100 million and include commercial, residential and mixed-use developments, public highways schemes, road and sewer infrastructure, port and marine-related civil engineering, and cycle and pedestrian corridors. You may manage three to five small-to-medium projects concurrently or lead major packages within a larger scheme, working with clients, architects, project management consultants and public authorities.

Your Impact in this Position

In the short term, you will build strong working relationships, understand internal processes and contribute to live projects across the design and delivery lifecycle. Over time, you could take greater ownership of multidisciplinary coordination, project management, client engagement and stakeholder communication.

The role offers scope to influence major infrastructure outcomes, strengthen technical delivery and support the development of junior engineers. Longer-term opportunities may include design management, leadership of major schemes, significant client-facing responsibility and contribution to tenders, work-winning and business development. Success could be demonstrated through reliable project milestones, high-quality technical outputs, effective coordination, trusted client relationships and growing team capability.

Core Capabilities Required for Success:

Technical Expertise in Civil Engineering Design

Bring advanced highways and drainage design capability, with the judgement to develop practical civil engineering solutions from feasibility through construction support. Civil 3D proficiency is essential, while AutoCAD, BIM processes and drainage modelling software such as Flow are advantageous. You will apply DMRB and MCHW requirements to produce accurate, safe and buildable designs, supported by clear technical reports, drawings and design documentation.

Project Delivery and Multidisciplinary Coordination

Manage design activities across planning, technical drawing production, procurement support, construction-stage coordination and final handover. You will balance multiple live workstreams and maintain focus on programme, quality and cost requirements. Effective coordination with environmental, structural and other in-house disciplines will be central to delivering integrated project scopes.

Leadership, Mentoring and People Development

Use your experience to guide graduates and engineers, review and approve junior colleagues’ work and provide practical technical support. Alongside delivering your own work packages with autonomy, you will help maintain consistent engineering standards and methodologies, encourage collaborative working and contribute to the development of capability across the team.

Stakeholder and Client Engagement

Represent the company confidently in meetings with private-sector clients, public-sector bodies, architects and project management consultancies. You will explain technical information clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences, building professional and trusted relationships. Engagement may also involve landowners and community stakeholders on public projects.

Commercial Awareness and Work Winning Contribution

Support commercially sound project delivery through an understanding of scope definition, budgets, resource allocation and commercial risk. You will contribute to tenders, bids and business development activity, helping identify new opportunities and support proposals that are technically credible, deliverable and commercially viable.

Qualifications & Training

You will need a degree in Civil Engineering or an equivalent discipline, substantial experience in highways, drainage and associated infrastructure design, practical Civil 3D experience, knowledge of relevant health and safety legislation, and experience delivering designs to DMRB and MCHW standards.

Chartered Engineer status, or progression towards chartership with ICE, Engineers Ireland or an equivalent professional body, is highly desirable. Training or certification in project management, BIM coordination, health and safety or specialist civil engineering software would be beneficial. Support is available for formal qualifications, professional development and chartership pathways.

Working Environment

Based in Belfast, the role is located in a large, permanently desked office on the edge of the city, with on-site parking, public transport connections and access to major road networks.

Hybrid working is supported, with an expectation of two to three office days each week for mentoring, collaboration and team coordination. Flexible working arrangements can be accommodated where project responsibilities allow.