Sarah Durdin, an operational manager based in highways at Kirklees Council, outlines the authority’s ambitious investment plans and why it needs the right people, with the right skills, to help deliver them.
Kirklees, set in the heart of West Yorkshire, is an exciting place to be right now.
With the two major town centres of Huddersfield and Dewsbury, it also encompasses the smaller towns of Batley, Birstall, Cleckheaton, Denby Dale, Heckmondwike, Holmfirth, Kirkburton, Marsden, Meltham, Mirfield, and Slaithwaite.
It’s an ambitious place, with traditional Yorkshire landscape combined with modern, forward-thinking ideas.
Kirklees Council’s Highways Service is a big part of that ambition, both in enabling the strategic vision to be realised on the ground and having skilled people who want to make a difference locally.
Big ambition – Big investment
Our ‘ambition for delivery’ sees a programme of major projects spread across the district, including:
- £70m investment in digital infrastructure
- £200m investment in the transport network (including circa £40m Transforming Cities Fund (TCF) programme)
- Multi-million investment in – and regeneration of – our town centres
- Supporting the delivery of circa 30,000 new homes and 25,000 new jobs by 2031
- Multi-million investment in low carbon energy schemes
- Active travel investment programme
- Enhanced and rejuvenated events and cultural programme reaching across the district
The challenges of recruiting
We need to recruit people to help bring our new schemes to life. But finding the right people, with the right skills, at the right time is a big challenge for many reasons.
We know we’re in competition with other local authorities in the region, who are also investing in their highway network, to recruit people with the same skill-set.
We’re also looking for more people to do jobs we previously turned to non-contract employees for, like industry-specific consultants. Whilst there will always be the need for non-contract employees in specialist areas, our long term aim is to build substantive teams of people that have these essential skills.
And, whilst our employees have a wealth of experience and a great skill-set, we know some people who are nearer the end of their careers who will be keen to pass on their skills to a future workforce – so we need to recruit now.
Finally, the Covid pandemic is an additional challenge. In these uncertain times, people may be unsure whether it’s the right time to change jobs.
But I believe now is a very good time to think about a career with us in Kirklees – in our Highways Service.
We know the investment in our district is significant, and the investment in our service reflects that. We are a valued service and we want to continue to deliver what is important locally and regionally – a good highways network, fit for the long term.
Careful thought has been given to create staffing requirements and to develop highly skilled employees.
We have a great track record of ‘growing our own’ civil engineering apprentices and this will continue. Each year we recruit apprentices, most of whom have made a great start to their career with us and have gone on to develop their civil or highway engineering career within Kirklees Council, which is a great success story.
Our own Chief Executive is also a Civil Engineer, so we know Kirklees is also a place to grow, progress and achieve great things.
We need the mix of people and skills now; highways engineers, civil engineers, technical experts, to help us achieve even greater things.
Our employees are at the very heart of the services we provide to the community, to help us achieve our ambitions, we want the best possible team. In return, we will make sure you are rewarded with:
- A thorough induction programme to support you in your new role,
- Personal development and career progression,
- Innovative and creative ways of working,
- A staff wellbeing programme, and
- A comprehensive total rewards package for our staff, including competitive pay, health and wellbeing programme, volunteering programme, staff discounts and much more.
- Flexible working
- Work/Life Balance
- Generous annual leave plus bank holidays
- Excellent pension benefits
We are recruiting to a wide variety of roles to enable us to deliver our ambition for Kirklees and we would love people to take a look at our places, our job roles and the opportunities that are here for you in Kirklees.
Here are details of a couple of current roles:
Principal Engineer: https://kirklees.tal.net/vx/lang-en-GB/mobile-0/appcentre-1/brand-4/candidate/so/pm/1/pl/4/opp/2826-Principal-Engineer-Multiple-Roles-Available/en-GB
Principal Technical Officer: https://kirklees.tal.net/vx/lang-en-GB/mobile-0/appcentre-1/brand-4/candidate/so/pm/1/pl/4/opp/2851-Principal-Technical-Officer-Multiple-Roles-Available/en-GB