Highways executive search is the work of placing senior leaders into highways and complex civils delivery, including the organisations operating on National Highways frameworks and major road schemes. It is retained, research led and handled personally, from brief to placement.
Highways Executive Search
Frameworks, road schemes, civils delivery.
What this sector asks of its leaders
Highways leadership sits on the same two-sided requirement as the rest of major civils, with a framework layer over the top of it.
Technical credibility. The engineering is not a background detail. A leader who cannot hold a technical conversation with the people delivering the work will not carry them.
Commercial and operational leadership. The same person has to keep the scheme on programme and on budget, through a contract structure and a client interface that are rarely simple.
Framework discipline. National Highways frameworks are a large part of this work, and the commercial habits they demand are specific. Someone who has run packages inside one knows where the flexibility sits and where it does not.
Frameworks over the top of it
A leader who cannot hold a technical conversation with the people delivering the work will not carry them.
Establishing which of the three a person has actually done, rather than which they can describe, is the point of the assessment.
The roles I recruit here
The wider senior roles
Beyond the grid I also recruit Managing Quantity Surveyor, Head of Commercial and Chief Operating Officer, along with group board appointments, which run under board appointments.
How the search runs
The brief comes first: the real requirement, the target organisations, and the profile that will succeed in your business. Then the mapping, a complete picture of who holds the equivalent role across that universe, with named individuals, current remit, reporting line and likely motivation. Every approach is made personally and confidentially. The shortlist is four to six, each with a written appraisal covering capability, motivation and risk, and it names the reservations as well as the strengths.
If the brief is wrong, the salary is wrong, or the internal leader is the right answer, you hear that before you spend money on a search.
How the search runs here
The process is the same one I run for every senior appointment, set out stage by stage on the method page, linked below.
01What is highways executive search?
It is a retained, research-led process for appointing senior leaders into highways and complex civils delivery. The market is mapped completely, the people holding equivalent roles are approached directly and confidentially, and the shortlist is assessed rather than filtered.
02Which roles do you recruit in highways?
Project Director, Commercial Director, Operations Director, Regional Director, Construction Director and Chief Engineer are the typical appointments across highways, bridges and major civils schemes.
03Do you work with organisations on National Highways frameworks?
Yes. I place senior leaders into the organisations operating on National Highways frameworks and on major transport and utilities infrastructure.
04Why retain a search rather than brief several agencies?
Contingency recruiters are paid only if the person they submit is hired, so they work at speed across many roles and put forward the people already known to them. Retained search is commissioned exclusively and paid in stages, which funds a complete mapping of the market and a properly assessed shortlist.
05What does a retained search cost?
Retained search is typically charged as a percentage of the appointed leader's first-year total package, invoiced in stages across the assignment. My fee is 22.5%, agreed in full at the outset with no variation later.
Start a conversation
If you are building leadership for a highways framework or a major road scheme, I would welcome the chance to talk. No hard sell, no obligation.
Photograph: National Highways.
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