Streetwork Coordinator

A streetworks coordinator manages the permits, notices and schedules for work that digs up or occupies the public highway - gas, water, electricity, telecoms and broadband installations, plus council road maintenance. They sit between the organisation doing the digging and the highway authority (usually the county or unitary council) that controls the road, making sure every job is properly noticed, permitted, scheduled and closed down under the legal regime set out in the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991 and the Traffic Management Act 2004. The job exists both on the authority side (assessing and granting permits) and on the works-promoter side (applying for them and keeping contractors legal).

Starting salary: £24k–£32k
Live graduate jobs: Search all jobs
Main way in: Direct entry as a streetworks/permit administrator or…
They usually ask for: A degree is often preferred but frequently not required

Approximate graduate salary

Typically around £24,000–£32,000 to start, though this varies widely. Local authority roles tend to sit towards the lower end and follow published council pay scales, while utility, telecoms and contractor roles - particularly in London and the South East, or on fibre rollout programmes - can start higher. Experienced coordinators and team leaders earn meaningfully more.

What you'd actually do

Raising, checking or assessing permit applications and statutory notices on a street works IT system (EToN-compliant software that exchanges data between utilities and highway authorities) - this is the core clerical engine of the job and takes up a large chunk of the week.
Checking planned jobs against the national street gazetteer and road records: is the street traffic-sensitive, is it within a resurfacing embargo, does it clash with another promoter's work, does it need traffic signals or a road closure?
Chasing site teams for start, stop and interim/permanent reinstatement notices so jobs are registered on time - late or missing notices are what generate fixed penalty notices and charges.
Handling 'noticing' disputes and challenges: a permit refused or varied by the authority, a condition the contractor says is unworkable, or an overrun charge the promoter wants to contest.

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Coordination meetings with other utilities, the council's network management team and sometimes the police or event organisers, to sequence works on the same stretch of road.
Logging and responding to queries from residents, businesses, councillors and customer services about why a road is dug up and when it will reopen.
Producing weekly or monthly reports on permit volumes, refusal rates, overruns and fixed penalty notices for managers, and spotting patterns that need fixing with a particular gang or depot.

How graduates get in

Direct entry as a streetworks/permit administrator or coordinator, then growing into the full role - this is by far the most common route, and employers advertise openly to graduates and non-graduates alike.
Internal moves within a utility, telecoms/fibre provider or civils contractor - people often come across from planning, scheduling, traffic management or site admin once they know how jobs actually run.
Local authority graduate or trainee schemes in highways, transport or network management; some councils run general local government graduate programmes that include a highways placement.
Graduate schemes at large utilities, water companies and infrastructure contractors, where streetworks coordination may be one rotation rather than a permanent posting.

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Via a traffic management or civil engineering background - CSCS-carded site experience or a traffic management qualification transfers well, though this is a less common graduate route.
Apprenticeship or school-leaver entry into highways/network management teams, then progression - worth knowing about because it means you will work alongside colleagues who did not come through a degree route.

What employers ask for

A degree is often preferred but frequently not required. Where it is asked for, subject rarely matters - geography, civil engineering, transport planning, town planning, business or environmental subjects all read well, but humanities graduates get in regularly.
Grades requirements are usually light touch compared with City graduate schemes; many adverts specify no classification at all, some ask for a 2:2 or above.
Knowledge of the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991 and the Traffic Management Act 2004 permit regime - employers will usually train you, but showing you know what these are puts you ahead at interview.
Street Works qualifications are common and often funded by the employer: the Supervisor units (sometimes called the 'street works supervisor ticket') and, for authority-side staff, training on permit assessment. Some roles expect you to hold or work towards these.

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Strong IT and data accuracy - you will live in a permitting system and in spreadsheets. Some employers specifically mention experience with street works software, but most accept general systems literacy.
A full UK driving licence is often asked for where the role includes site visits or inspections; purely office-based permitting roles may not need one.

Skills that matter

Reading and applying regulation precisely

Notice timescales, permit conditions and reinstatement categories are legally defined, and getting them wrong costs the employer money in fixed penalty notices and overrun charges.

Attention to detail under volume

You may be processing a steady stream of permits and notices daily, and a single wrong date, street reference or works category creates a dispute weeks later.

Negotiation with people who disagree with you

Site supervisors want to start tomorrow, the authority wants a different date, and your job is to land a workable compromise without the job becoming unlawful.

Geographic and spatial reasoning

You need to picture how closing one road pushes traffic onto another and whether two promoters working 200 metres apart will gridlock a town centre.

Clear written communication for non-technical audiences

The same works programme has to be explained to a contractor, a council officer and an angry shopkeeper, and each needs a different level of detail.

Calm handling of escalations

Burst mains, emergency works and roads that do not reopen on time arrive with no notice and with councillors or customers already complaining.

Putting these on a CV? We counted which skills 12,914 live graduate adverts ask for, and what to do with the answer — part of our application advice.

Where it leads

Streetworks administrator or permit officer: processing notices and applications under supervision, learning the legislation and the software. Most people spend their first year or so here.
Streetworks coordinator proper: owning a geographic patch or a programme of works, making judgement calls on permits and conditions, and handling disputes yourself.
Senior coordinator or team leader: supervising a small permitting team, managing the relationship with particular highway authorities or promoters, and owning performance against penalty and overrun targets.
Streetworks or network management manager - on the authority side this can lead into wider traffic management, parking and highway network roles; on the promoter side into planning, delivery or compliance management. Timescales vary a lot and depend heavily on turnover in a small team.
Sideways and onward moves are common and often more lucrative than climbing in place: into traffic management consultancy, transport planning, utilities programme management, or specialist streetworks consultancy and auditing roles.

What people get wrong

“It is an outdoor, site-based job - you will be out on the road in a hi-vis.”

Most streetworks coordination is desk work in a permitting system, with email and phone chasing. Site visits happen in some roles, particularly inspector-flavoured ones, but plenty of coordinators rarely leave the office.

“'Coordinator' means low-level admin with no real responsibility.”

The decisions carry financial and legal weight. A badly handled permit can mean penalty charges, an unlawful occupation of the highway, or a town centre gridlocked during a busy weekend - which is why the regime is written into statute.

“It is a niche backwater with no future.”

It sits at the centre of the fibre broadband rollout, water main replacement and energy network upgrades, so demand for people who understand the permit regime has been steady. The specialist knowledge is portable between utilities, contractors, councils and consultancies.

“You need a civil engineering degree.”

The role is about regulation, scheduling and coordination rather than design or structural calculation. Engineering helps you talk to site teams credibly, but many coordinators come from unrelated degrees or from no degree at all.

Where this varies

The biggest split is which side of the fence you sit on. On the highway authority side (county, unitary or London borough councils) you are the regulator: assessing permit applications, setting conditions, issuing penalties, and balancing competing demands on the network against the public interest. On the works promoter side (utilities, water companies, telecoms and fibre providers, and the civils contractors working for them) you are the applicant: getting permission, keeping gangs legal and productive, and challenging charges. The legislation is the same but the incentives are opposite, and people move between the two regularly. There is also variation by employer type - a large utility may have a whole permitting department with narrow specialist roles, while a smaller contractor may have one person doing permitting, traffic management liaison, reinstatement records and customer complaints. Scotland and Northern Ireland operate under different statutory frameworks from England and Wales, so terminology and the permit versus notice distinction differ; Wales has its own arrangements too. If you are applying outside England, check which regime the employer works under.

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General guidance about the role across the UK market, not about any specific employer. Entry routes and requirements vary — always check the individual job advert.