Materials Engineer

Mott MacDonald is a global engineering, management, and development consultancy with over 20,000 employees across more than 50 countries and 140+ offices. 

We work across incredible global industries, delivering exciting work that is defining our future and making an important societal impact in the communities we serve. Our people power our performance – we succeed when they do. With countless opportunities to collaborate, learn, and grow, the possibilities for excellence are as varied as every individual. 

Whether you want to grow as a subject matter expert or broaden your experience with roles across our international community, you’re surrounded by global specialists who want to combine their expertise and champion you to be your best. As a proudly employee-owned business, we benefit our clients, our communities, and each other, investing in creating the right space for everyone to feel empowered, included, and valued. Whatever your ambition, Mott MacDonald is where people come to be brilliant.

About the business unit 
We help conceive, drive, and implement transport solutions for cities, regions, and asset owners/operators around the globe. From preparing the business case and advising on related issues - such as revenue, procurement, and environmental legislation - to delivering the completed infrastructure and helping maintain it. Our planning, engineering, environmental and management skills cover the whole project cycle. We play a major role in developing and delivering the Global Transport Sector Strategy.

Overview of the role

We are looking for a motivated, proactive Materials Engineer to join our Special Services team in our Heavy Civil Infrastructure Division. You will be working with other Materials, Civil and Structural Engineers within a diverse and highly skilled specialist team. You will be working on unique, technically demanding projects across a range of sectors. This will involve addressing technical queries, preparing durability assessments for new structures including durability modelling, writing specifications, conducting on-site inspections and investigations of structures, reviewing available data, developing remedial and maintenance options, solving technical problems and providing sustainable solutions for colleagues and clients. You will need the capability and willingness to take responsibility for interacting directly with clients and ensuring that their needs are met by efficiently producing high quality project deliverables on time and to budget.

You’ll work with experienced engineers who will support you in managing your work and help you to ensure that work is carried out to a high standard and following necessary quality, environmental and safety requirements. You will work on a variety of projects of various sizes and across different project stages. You will share your skills and knowledge across the team as well as develop knowledge from other disciplines when necessary. Additionally, you will develop and strengthen your skills to be involved in more specialist areas such as developing state-of-the-art models to simulate the behaviour of different construction material properties exposed to selected environments.

Key responsibilities and duties include:

• Preparing durability assessments which involves identifying potential and actual deterioration mechanisms of construction products and structural materials in service and developing solutions to ensure design life is achieved
• Providing general advice, detailed technical input or developing innovative and sustainable solutions for both internal and external clients
• Ensuring deliverables meet project requirements, including managing internal/ external client expectations and relationships
• Contributing to a variety of global projects, both small and large, and at all project stages, providing technical input and deliverables to British, European or International Standards
• Planning and undertaking inspections and condition surveys, and specifying and overseeing materials testing on a variety of structures such as tunnels, buildings, walls, bridges, working on site when required
• Ensuring effective communication with colleagues on the project team, with clients and other stakeholders, both verbally and in writing, reports and presentations

Candidate specification

As a professional working within the construction industry, it is essential you have a foundation in construction materials engineering or technology relevant to their use in civil engineering disciplines, including expertise in the use, behaviour and performance of concrete and preferably also steel. This will include an understanding of their properties, behavior, specification for use in construction, quality assurance and potential problems and deterioration mechanisms. You will have good knowledge of the sustainability aspects of these materials and be familiar with options for producing low carbon concrete.

You must be committed to developing your technical and management skills. You should be able to produce high-quality technical reports and present project information clearly to colleagues and clients. You will be adaptable, willing to tackle new challenges and able to manage your time effectively across varied, concurrent commissions involving a range of stakeholders. You will represent Mott MacDonald professionally and balance contractual and commercial requirements with your workload.

You will also be able to demonstrate the following:

• Master’s degree qualified (or equivalent) in an Engineering or Science discipline, preferably specialising in construction materials
• Chartered with a relevant professional institution or working towards / close to gaining chartership
• Detailed knowledge of civil engineering assets
• An interest in gaining experience of working with different materials
• Advantageous to have data processing skills (preferably using VBA or other coding languages)
• Due to the nature of our industry, you will be willing to travel nationally or internationally for projects as well as be flexible to work non-standard hours when necessary.

UK Immigration

Mott MacDonald Ltd. are not currently offering sponsorship to candidates under the Skilled Worker visa route in the UK. This decision is as a consequence of the changes made to the Skilled Worker route by the UK Government in April 2024. We continue to welcome applications from candidates who are eligible for alternative immigration routes in the UK, that do not require sponsorship as a Skilled Worker now or in future.

Agile working  

At Mott MacDonald, we believe it makes business sense for you and your manager to choose how you can work most effectively to meet your client, team, and personal commitments. We offer a hybrid working policy that embraces your well-being, flexibility, and trust.

Equality, diversity, and inclusion 

We put equality, diversity, and inclusion at the heart of our business, seeking to promote fair employment procedures and practices to ensure equal opportunities for all. We encourage individual expression in our workplace and are committed to creating an inclusive environment where everyone feels they can contribute.

AI Usage

At Mott MacDonald, we see the value AI can bring, but we take a people-first approach to hiring. While AI tools can help candidates prepare and build confidence, every application and