The UK transport sector is under increasing pressure to deliver more, faster, and with greater technical complexity than ever before. Large scale investment programmes across rail and highways are transforming how infrastructure is designed, delivered and maintained. Yet while project ambition continues to grow, the availability of skilled professionals has not kept pace. For employers across the industry, this widening gap between demand and supply is now one of the defining challenges of delivery.

At Matchtech, our long standing involvement in rail and highways recruitment provides a unique perspective on how the labour market is evolving. Across engineering, project management, commercial and construction disciplines, competition for experienced professionals is intensifying, particularly at senior levels where capability is in shortest supply. The result is a market where employers are having to rethink not just how much they pay, but how, where and when they engage with talent.

Salary and contract rate expectations across both sectors have risen steadily as organisations compete for scarce skills. Patterns are evident across highways, where senior, principal and associate level professionals are increasingly difficult to secure without highly competitive offers.

However, financial reward on its own is no longer enough to guarantee access to talent. In highly competitive regions, particularly London and the South East, employers frequently find that rising salaries are offset by equally high living costs and an under saturated candidate market. As a result, even well funded projects can struggle to secure and retain the skills they require if their workforce models lack flexibility or regional awareness. Hiring managers should therefore consider how they capture the expertise of the ageing workforce via ensuring the development of juniors and fragmented hires. 

Geography plays an increasingly important role in shaping hiring outcomes. Transport talent in the UK is heavily concentrated in a small number of urban centres, with London holding the largest overall population of white collar professionals. This concentration brings advantages in scale but also creates challenges, as intense competition drives up costs and accelerates staff movement between organisations.

Beyond the capital, strong regional hubs form a critical second tier within the national talent landscape. Cities across the North West, Midlands and Yorkshire hold significant pools of engineering, project and commercial expertise, creating a valuable corridor of capability outside the South East. Employers who actively engage with these regions and who are willing to structure roles around hybrid or regionally distributed delivery models are often able to access skills more efficiently and sustainably.

Other locations, including parts of Scotland and the South West, offer specialist capability but with much smaller talent pools that can quickly become saturated. In these areas, timing and early engagement become critical. Delayed hiring decisions frequently result in prolonged vacancies, as the limited number of suitable candidates are absorbed rapidly by competing employers. Across Ireland and Northern Ireland, the smaller scale of the market means that relocation, cross border working and remote delivery are often essential components of effective workforce planning.

Understanding where talent is located and where it is not brings tangible benefits. Employers who align their hiring strategies to genuine talent availability can reduce timetohire, manage salary expectations more accurately and avoid unnecessary recruitment spend in low yield regions. This insight also enables more informed decisions about office locations, project deployment, and long term resourcing models.

Flexibility has emerged as one of the most important differentiators in today’s market. Professionals with highly soughtafter skills expect greater choice over how they work, and organisations that insist on rigid, location bound models are increasingly limiting their own access to talent. Hybrid working, regional delivery teams and flexible project arrangements are no longer exceptional they are becoming standard practice across much of the sector.

At the same time, employer value propositions are under greater scrutiny. Experienced candidates are looking beyond pay to assess factors such as workload balance, project quality, leadership culture and long term career progression. Investment in training, support for professional development and visible commitment to sustainable infrastructure outcomes all influence where individuals choose to build their careers.

What is becoming clear is that skills shortages within transport are not short term or cyclical. They reflect deeper structural challenges linked to workforce demographics, the pace of infrastructure investment and longstanding constraints within training and development pipelines. Addressing them requires strategic thinking rather than reactive recruitment.

For employers, this means adopting a more detailed, agile approach to workforce planning one that recognises regional variation, embraces flexible delivery models and positions people strategy alongside technical and commercial decision making. Those organisations that move early, engage clearly and align their offers to the realities of the labour market are far better placed to secure the skills they need.

As the transport sector continues to evolve, the ability to attract and retain specialist talent will play an increasingly central role in determining project success. In an environment defined by competition and constraint, agility in hiring is not simply beneficial it is a critical advantage. To see the full salary benchmarking for the highways and transport sectors visit Highways Recruitment | Specialist Highways Jobs UK | Matchtech

If you're looking to hire for your highways projects or seeking your next opportunity visit matchtech.com to connect with our specialist Highways team, or contact our Highways Business Development Director, Sam.Forster@matchtech.com

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the CIHT or its members. Neither the CIHT nor any person acting on their behalf may be held responsible for the use which may be made of the information contained therein.