Highway Steward

EMEA3 Recruitment; Chichester; Hybrid; GBP 34,000 - 37,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Local government pension scheme

27 days annual leave

Flexible working options

Maternity, paternity, adoption leave

Volunteering opportunities

Training and development opportunities

Staff discounts

Health and wellbeing benefits

Job summary

West Sussex County Council is seeking a Highway Steward based at Drayton Depot, Chichester. The role offers hybrid working, with travel around the county to inspect and repair highways and enforce highway legislation.

You will respond to customer enquiries, resolve issues, and support community groups to undertake work themselves. The ideal candidate has excellent communication, problem-solving, and IT skills; a full driving licence is essential.

Qualifications

• Excellent written and oral communication skills.
• Ability to anticipate and identify problems, plan solutions, make sound pragmatic decisions.
• Strong customer focus with ability to work in a team and raise the profile of Highways maintenance.
• Good observational skills to locate faults and keep accurate records.

Responsibilities

• Respond to customer enquiries and resolve issues in a timely manner.
• Plan and travel around the county to support highways maintenance.
• Support community groups to undertake work themselves where possible.
• Be flexible to cover other areas to ensure efficient service delivery.

Skills

Communication skills

Problem solving

Customer focus

Teamwork

IT knowledge

Education

Full driving licence

Job description

About the Job

Salary:£33,673 to £36,581 annum.

Contract:Permanent Full-time, 37 hours per week.

Location:Your base is Drayton Depot, Chichester you will also be required to travel. You will be able to work in a hybrid manner, as determined by the needs of the service.

Interview date: Week commencing 12th October 2026

We are looking for a motivated and customer focused individual to become Highway Steward!

As a Highway Steward, you will support the delivery of a safe highway network to all residents of West Sussex, through the regular inspection and repair of the highways and enforcement of highway legislation. This role is about effective ‘stewardship’ of the highway responding to highway matters proactively.

You will have a wide range of responsibilities, but the primary focus is responding to customer enquiries; to understand and resolve issues in a timely manner. As the post holder you will also focus on how we can support and enable community groups (e.g. Parishes and Neighbourhood groups) to undertake work themselves.

You will be required to travel around the county independently and will need to plan your work efficiently. You will use your own initiative when carrying out duties and these will include physical activities. The role requires flexibility; you will be expected to cover other areas across the whole of the county or focus on other tasks within the role when required to ensure the efficient operation of the service and teams.

What are we looking for?

• Excellent written and oral communication skills.
• Ability to anticipate and identify problems, plan solutions, make sound pragmatic problem-solving decisions and make best use of available resources.
• Strong customer focus with the ability to work within a team that provides a high quality Highways network and effectively raises the profile of Highways maintenance within the Area.
• Good professional observational skills in order to locate faults in the highway and ability to keep accurate records in order to document findings.

Qualifications and/or experience:

• Full current driver’s licence.
• Basic theoretical knowledge of engineering / civil construction for planning improvements and repairs to the highway, including the Highways Act and NRSWA, and other relevant pieces of legislation, including health and safety, for enforcement work.
• Sound and accurate IT knowledge.
• Demonstrable customer service & community engagement skills.
• Proven successful experience of working as part of a team to effectively meet objectives within agreed / necessary timescales.

Working for us

As well as adding real value to our service users and our communities, as an employer we recognise our employees are central in being able to achieve this. To recognise this we want to help support your development and provide an great place to work ensuring you can fulfil your full potential, have access to a range of benefits including:

• an excellentlocal government pension scheme
• generous holiday entitlement of 27 days (plus opportunity to buy additional leave)
• arange of flexible working options, depending on your job role
• maternity, paternity, dependencyand adoption leave
• volunteering opportunities
• training and development opportunities, including coaching and mentoring
• a range of discounts giving our staff access to hundreds of offers; groceries, travel, cinema tickets, days out, leisure activities, high street retailers and the opportunity to save over £1,000 a year through our West Sussex Choices benefits platform (see ourStaff discounts pageif you are a business looking to offer a discount)
• health and wellbeing benefits including access to our Employee Assistance Programme,Mental Health First Aiders and Voluntary Health Cash Plans

For a full list this can be found at our Rewards and Benefits page.

Further information

The reference number for this role is EIE01605.

For an informal conversation or for further information regarding the role, please contact Gary Jannaway Assistant Area Highways Manager at [e-mail]

For issues or queries regarding your application please contact [e-mail].

Equity, inclusion, accessibilityand diversity is very important to West Sussex County Council. We welcome and encourage applicationsfrom people of all cultures, ethnicities, identities, backgrounds and lived experiences, as this helps us build a diverse and talented workforce, that reflects the communities we serve. We ensure our approach to recruitment is flexible and supportive to enable all applicants to be at their best and to ensure they have the best possible chance of success.

We operate a guaranteed interview scheme for applicants that have a disability, are a veteran or are a care leaver. More information can be found on our application helppage.