Health, Safety and Welfare Leader

Atkins is one of the world’s most respected design, engineering and project management consultancies. They build long-term trusted partnerships to create a world where lives are enriched through the implementation of new and exciting ideas. Atkins have a vision to shape the future of transportation, to lead where others follow and to deliver the future of mobility today. With 3,000 staff across the UK & Europe, they are brilliantly placed to lead the sector at a time when Government commitment and investment in infrastructure is at all-time high.

Transportation is our centre of excellence for the design of highway and rail infrastructure projects. We aim to be the first choice designer for local and national highway authorities, contractors and developers. We are working on a number of high profile projects and frameworks nationwide, including Cambridge to Huntingdon A14 upgrade and Smart Motorways programme through the Collaborative Delivery Framework for Highways England, HS2 and related projects and the West Midlands Highways Alliance.

We aspire to lead the industry with our safety behaviours and culture and to achieve this we wish to appoint an individual to drive the safety agenda with our clients and suppliers, to lead our existing safety team and to develop our safety culture across our delivery teams.

Our Project Safety Advisors lead on establishing behavioural safety on an expanding portfolio of the biggest and most challenging UK projects. With the implementation of the CDM 2015 Regulations they support our Principal Designer role with high quality safety advice but also to work in collaborative project teams with contractors and clients to make safety the centre of everything we do.

The team are based in Epsom, Birmingham and Warrington and leading them will require travel across the UK and potentially abroad to meet the needs of our projects and clients. The role will entail developing the agenda on behavioural safety and ensuring the team have the skills capability and behaviours to meet current and anticipated demands on them.

Responsibilities:
In addition to the duties of Project Safety Advisor summarised below, the individual is will be responsible for the following:
o Representing Atkins with major clients supporting them in pushing forward their safety agendas
o Ensuring excellent delivery to clients in terms of both service and technical content
o Establishing Atkins as a leading voice on safety within the industry through participation in conferences, round table discussions and client sponsored working groups
o Co-ordinating the workload of the team, balancing work and resources across the team
o Assisting in securing additional work for the team
o Anticipating future requirements for skills, capability and capacity and working with Practice Directors to develop these, through recruitment and personal development
o Line management
o Raising the profile of the team both internally and externally
o Challenging the team to lead on behavioural safety matters with their clients

A summary of the duties of the Project Safety Advisor role:
o Supporting our Principal Designers role discharging duties under CDM 2015
o Facilitating and delivering project health and safety workshops with internal teams
o Facilitating and delivering project health and safety workshops with collaborative teams including clients and contractors
o Embodying safety leadership to develop behavioural safety on projects and in teams
o Liaising with and managing senior health and safety stakeholders.
o Maintaining a knowledge base of current and future developments in the health and safety field
o Presenting to clients and key stakeholders
o Working collaboratively across the Atkins Group.
o Delivery of classroom based health and safety training
o Preparing relevant parts of fee offers to support work winning activity.


Requirements:
Essential
o Demonstrable ability to engage with our key clients at a senior management level to influence and move forward the safety agenda
o Demonstrable leadership capability when working with technical professionals
o Demonstrable ability to motivate team members
o Demonstrable ability to assess team capability, identify areas for development and plan to fulfil these
o Demonstrable understanding of the current and anticipated market demands for professional safety advice
o Evidence of strong people skills required to lead a diverse team across multiple locations
o Proven ability to manage and organise the workload of self and others to meet programme and budget targets
o Appropriate academic and professional qualifications, including Chartered Member of a relevant Professional Institution with solid experience in a leading health and safety role.
o Experience of working with our key clients, e.g., Highways England, major contractors, developers and local authorities.
o Holder of current NEBOSH General or Construction Certificates
o In depth knowledge and experience of the process of delivering high quality infrastructure in design and construction.
o The ability to lead collaborative work teams through workshops and facilitation

Desirable
o Evidence of successfully delivering a similar role in a contracting environment
o Knowledge of Highways England’s framework and processes for documenting safety in a design and construction environment
o Experience of working as part of or leading a design team
o Experience of business process improvement techniques, for example, Lean Construction.
o Qualified Road Safety Audit team member or leader (HD19/03).

The Individual:
o Excellent interpersonal, organisational, communication and influencing skills at a senior management level
o A hard working and flexible individual, who is a team player, showing attention to detail, is reliable, proactive and shows initiative whilst able to keep cool under pressure and when working to often demanding deadlines.
o Ability to build and motivate a team and demonstrate excellent leadership qualities.
o Self-motivated and able to work independently to set targets and objectives aligned with the business plan of both the Practice and Transportation
o A high expectation of performance for themselves and other members of the team.
o Customer focused with good relationship management skills.
o Ability to communicate effectively at all levels.
o A supportive and encouraging approach to mentoring less experienced members of the team.
o A collaborative approach to working with others focussing on customer value
o Be available to travel across the UK and work away from home, including periods overseas on assignments.
o Have a valid UK driving licence.

Training
Atkins develops individuals through a portfolio of training and development activities designed to help you make the best of your abilities and talents. These are reviewed with individuals through an annual appraisal process. We actively support staff in achieving corporate membership of relevant institutions.

This role may require security clearance and offers of employment will be dependent on obtaining the relevant level of clearance. If this is necessary it will be discussed with you at interview.

If applying to this role please do not make reference to (in conversation) or include in your application or CV, details of any current or previously held security clearance.