About the role
Do you enjoy working outdoors, being part of a team and seeing the results of your work every day?
We're looking for enthusiastic and hardworking people to join our growing highways team as Highway Maintenance Operatives.
This is an opportunity to build a rewarding career maintaining the roads, footways, cycleways and public spaces that thousands of people rely on every day. Whether you're repairing potholes, clearing drainage systems, maintaining signs or improving public rights of way, you'll play a vital role in keeping Cambridgeshire safe and moving.
Why join us?
This is more than just a maintenance role.
You'll be part of a new, community-focused approach to highways maintenance, working alongside Highway Rangers, local communities and volunteers to make visible improvements across the county.
You'll enjoy:
- Working outdoors in different locations across Cambridgeshire.
- Being part of a supportive and friendly team.
- A varied role where no two days are the same.
- Opportunities for training and career development.
- The satisfaction of making a real difference to local communities every day.
For more information or to chat about this opportunity please contact Joshua Rutherford at local.projects@cambridgeshire.gov.uk
What will you be doing?
As a Highway Maintenance Operative, you'll help deliver a range of planned, reactive and preventative maintenance activities across the highway network.
Your work could include:
- Repairing potholes and damaged highway surfaces.
- Maintaining footways and cycleways.
- Cleaning and maintaining drainage systems.
- Vegetation management and clearance.
- Repairing signs and street furniture.
- Maintaining public rights of way.
- Operating vehicles, plant and specialist equipment.
- Setting up safe traffic management around work sites.
- Working alongside volunteers and local communities on improvement projects.
You'll also help identify and report defects, undertake inspections and ensure work is completed safely and to a high standard.
About you
We're looking for people who enjoy practical work and take pride in doing a good job.
You may already have experience in highways, construction, landscaping, grounds maintenance, utilities or another outdoor operational role. If you're reliable, safety-focused and willing to learn, we'd love to hear from you.
You'll ideally have:
✅ Experience of outdoor, practical work.
✅ The ability to work safely as part of a team.
✅ A positive attitude and strong work ethic.
✅ A willingness to work in different locations across Cambridgeshire.
✅ Experience using tools, plant or machinery.
✅ Good communication skills and a customer-focused approach.
✅ A full UK driving licence.
Qualifications such as NRSWA accreditation, Chapter 8 Traffic Management or relevant maintenance and construction experience would be beneficial, but we welcome applications from people with transferable skills and a willingness to develop.
Our benefits
We value our colleagues in Cambridgeshire County Council and have developed a number of benefits in addition to the basics like annual leave, sick pay, pension and mileage…
- A comprehensive wellbeing package to cover all aspects of wellbeing, both in and out of work, which can also be accessed by your family
- Buy up to 4 weeks additional annual leave (pro-rata) through our salary sacrifice scheme
- Take your bank holidays flexibly to better suit your personal circumstances
- Make Additional Voluntary Contributions (Shared AVCs) to your pension with tax and National Insurance savings
- Access to development opportunities, apprenticeships and qualified coaches to support your personal and professional growth
- Paid volunteering hours each year so you can make a positive impact on our community during your normal working day
- Access to Peer Support Groups through our IDEAL staff equality, diversity and inclusion network
- Opportunities to nominate and receive Employee Recognition Awards
- An Our Cambs Rewards account, giving you access to in-store and online discounts as well as our Car Lease and Cycle to Work schemes
Take a look at our Employment Benefits Brochure attached to this advert to find out more.
About us
Cambridgeshire is a great place to work and live with a diverse population, an urban centre in Cambridge, historic Isle of Ely, Huntingdon and St Ives as well as more rural landscapes.
Our four values are central to our culture, driving everything we do.

We are proud to serve the diverse communities of Cambridgeshire and want our workforce to be reflective of this diversity, which we firmly believe benefits our colleagues, the organisation and our communities. If you don’t meet every single requirement in the job role but think this could be you, please don’t be put off. We are committed to building a workplace that is compassionate and inclusive as well as diverse, so if you think you could be a good candidate for this role please consider applying and speak to the recruiting manager if you have any questions.
Our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy, along with our employee network 'IDEAL' and self-organised peer support groups help us to foster an inclusive, supportive and safe working environment where people feel valued, respected, and empowered. We collect relevant diversity data for monitoring as part of the recruitment process to understand the diversity of our applicants and monitor any trends throughout the recruitment processes so that we can take meaningful action.
We are proud to be a Disability Confident Leader. We fully support providing reasonable adjustments throughout our recruitment process, as well as when you join us, and we encourage candidates to contact the Hiring Manager, whose details can be found in the advert, to discuss any adjustment needs. Through a Guaranteed Interview Scheme, we will offer an interview to all applicants who disclose a disability and meet the essential criteria for a job vacancy. On your application form you can indicate you are disabled. Some examples of reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process could include additional time to complete an assessment or printing a document on pastel coloured paper with larger font size and line spacing. We would value talking about what might be possible to enable you to join us and thrive, so if there is something that would help you to do your best during your journey with us, please get in touch.
Visit our jobs and careers section to find out more about our wide range of learning and development opportunities; apprenticeships; our wellbeing package; staff benefits; our commitment to equality, diversity and Inclusion.

