Senior Civil Engineer

Senior Civil Engineering Designer
Wakefield

Are you an experienced Civil Engineering Designer who enjoys getting stuck into the technical side of residential development rather than spending your days managing people, attending meetings or overseeing other people's work?

I'm working with a busy, established Wakefield-based company that's looking to strengthen its in-house Technical Team with the appointment of a Senior Civil Engineering Designer. They've got a consistent pipeline of residential developments and are making a conscious effort to bring more of their pre-construction engineering design work in-house rather than relying on external Consultancies.

They're looking for someone who knows residential engineering inside out, can pick up a site at feasibility stage and confidently work through the drainage, levels, earthworks and highways design without needing someone looking over their shoulder.

This isn't a management position dressed up as a technical role. Around 95% of your time will be spent doing actual design work, so it's ideally suited to someone who enjoys producing drawings, solving engineering problems and seeing their designs contribute directly to the success of a development.

The company typically works across 25-35 residential schemes each year, and you'll play an important part in assessing potential development sites and preparing the engineering information needed to support land acquisitions and pre-construction planning.
A large part of your role will involve taking an initial site layout and developing the engineering strategy around it. That means looking at how the drainage will work, establishing suitable finished floor and external levels, assessing cut-and-fill requirements and making sure the proposed highways and infrastructure are both practical and commercially sensible.
You'll also be identifying potential engineering constraints early on, whether that's abnormal ground conditions, difficult site levels, drainage limitations or infrastructure requirements that could significantly affect development costs.
Working alongside the Land, Commercial and Technical Teams, you'll help ensure schemes are properly assessed before commitments are made, producing accurate drawings and design information that can be used for feasibility studies, land bids, cost planning and tendering.
There's plenty of variety, and with the company looking to develop its internal design capability further, you'll have the opportunity to make a genuine contribution to how projects are approached and delivered.

First and foremost, they need someone who can design.

You'll ideally have around 5-10 years' experience working within a Civil Engineering Consultancy, with a strong background in residential developments, particularly volume housebuilding. You'll need to be comfortable bringing together the different elements of a residential infrastructure design, including:

• Foul and surface water drainage, attenuation and SuDS.
• Site levels, finished floor levels and external works.
• Earthworks modelling, cut-and-fill assessments and strategies.
• Residential highways, road layouts, gradients and adoptable infrastructure.
• Engineering feasibility studies and identifying abnormal development costs.
• Section 38, Section 104 and Section 278 requirements.
• Strong AutoCAD skills are essential, alongside practical experience with Civil 3D and/or Site3D. The ability to use these packages confidently to produce coordinated engineering designs is particularly important.

They aren't necessarily looking for someone with a particular job title or professional qualification. You don't need to be Chartered, and you don't need years of management experience, what matters is that you've got a solid grounding in residential Civil Engineering design, understand how the different engineering elements of a development fit together and can work independently to produce accurate, commercially considered designs.

For someone currently working in Consultancy who enjoys the technical side of residential engineering, this offers something a little different.
Rather than producing designs for external clients, you'll be working directly within the development business, giving you greater involvement in the early decision-making process and a clearer understanding of how your engineering input influences whether a site progresses.
You'll be joining an established Technical Team with a substantial workload already in place, so there'll be plenty to get involved with from day one.
It's also a genuine long-term opportunity. The company wants to build its internal engineering expertise and is looking for someone who can become a reliable, integral part of the team. Over time, there may be opportunities to take on broader pre-construction responsibilities and coordinate external Consultants, although the immediate priority is finding someone who enjoys hands-on design.

The salary is up to £50,000, depending on experience, and the position is based in the office five days per week in the Wakefield area. There isn't a hybrid working arrangement available, so it's best suited to someone who is comfortable being office-based and working closely with the wider team.

If you're an experienced Senior Civil Engineering Designer with a residential background and would prefer to spend your time designing rather than managing, I'd be keen to have a conversation.

For more information, please contact Sam at Calibre Search for a confidential discussion.

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