An exciting opportunity has arisen for an experienced Highway Maintenance Group Manager to come and join a busy client in the Lancashire area to lead the councils operational highways maintenance functions.
 
The successful candidate will oversee a broad portfolio including carriageway and footway repairs, drainage, structural defects, street lighting, minor structures, inspections, verge and public realm maintenance, and customer response and will hold operational ownership of the Managed Service delivery model for drainage and structural defects, and act as the Council's lead for Public Realm Agreements (PRAs) with district councils, ensuring alignment, consistency and strong partnership working.
 
The main duties of the experienced Highway Maintenance Group Manager are:
 
Operational Leadership
 
You will lead all core highways maintenance activities across twelve district areas, including:

• Reactive and planned carriageway and footway maintenance
• Drainage (gulley emptying, cleansing, repair, investigation)
• Structural defect investigations and repair programmes
• Street lighting operations and the Street Lighting PFI interface
• Highway safety inspections and defect prioritisation
• Minor civils, verges, soft estate and wider public realm maintenance activities
• Highway furniture, barriers, signs, and associated assets
• Incident response, emergency works and resilience operations

Public Realm & District Partnerships

• Act as the senior owner of Public Realm Agreements with district councils, setting standards, clarifying responsibilities, and ensuring coordinated delivery across district boundaries.
• Maintain strong operational and strategic relationships with district councils, ensuring public realm activities are aligned with countywide maintenance priorities and customer expectations.
• Oversee joint service reviews, improvements and consistency of approach across all districts.

People and Performance

• Lead a workforce of approximately 200 staff across multiple operational, technical and professional disciplines.
• Drive a culture focused on performance, customer satisfaction, rightfirsttime delivery and continuous improvement.
• Ensure all teams are equipped with the skills, commercial awareness and capability needed to deliver modern highways services.

Managed Service Ownership

• Provide endtoend leadership of the Managed Service model for drainage and structural defects, ensuring contract compliance, commercial discipline, and value for money.
• Support innovation, quality and productivity improvements through contract management and supplier engagement.

Integration with Asset & Network Management

• Collaborate with the Asset Management team to align operational activity with lifecycle planning and investment strategies.
• Work closely with Network Management to coordinate works, minimise disruption, manage permitting, and uphold statutory duties under the Traffic Management Act.

Stakeholder & Member Engagement

• Build strong relationships with elected Members, district partners, parish and town councils, community groups and the public.
• Provide senior leadership presence in local engagement, service briefings and Committee reports.
• Lead the resolution of complex customer cases and localised issues.

Governance, Standards & Assurance

• Ensure full compliance with highways legislation including the Highways Act, NRSWA, CDM, and the Traffic Management Act.
• Provide expert oversight of statutory inspection regimes, departures from standards, service risk management and commercial assurance.
• Manage significant revenue and capital budgets, ensuring accurate forecasting and robust cost control.

About You

You will be an experienced highways professional with strong leadership capability and a track record of delivering maintenance services at scale.

Essential Experience

• Extensive experience in highways maintenance, operations or asset management.
• Knowledge of highways legislation including Highways Act, NRSWA, and Traffic Management Act.
• Experience managing large multidisciplinary teams and complex operational services.
• Commercial and contract management experience, ideally with NECbased contracts.
• Experience working directly with district councils, parish councils and elected Members.
• Strong financial and performance management experience.

Essential Skills & Attributes

• Strong strategic and operational judgement.
• Politically aware with excellent communication and influencing skills.
• Customerfocused with an ability to manage highprofile and sensitive issues.
• Collaborative, commercially astute and committed to continuous improvement.

Qualifications

• Relevant qualification in highways, civil engineering, asset management or contract management.
• Evidence of continuous professional development.

For a full description and further information on the role, please call Harriet Simmonds at Carrington West on 02393 876051.

FOOTNOTE:

If you feel that you are right for this role technically, but the rate, location, or seniority does not suit you specifically then please still feel free to send us your CV. We constantly recruit for roles very similar to this one at all levels UK Wide. We are always keen to chat with you discreetly about your employment situation.
Even if you are happy in your current role for now, we always welcome calls from Highways, Drainage & Infrastructure professionals keen to make their introductions for future months or years. Our specialist team has a combined 40+ years' experience in this market. Please call Harriet at Carrington West on 02393 876051 for more information.
By applying for this position you are agreeing for Carrington West to hold and process your personal data in accordance with our Data Protection Policy. Your data will be shared with third party clients specifically relevant to any roles you have applied for. If at any stage you wish to withdraw your consent please email.