£74,960 National, £76,405 Croydon/London

Location: Bristol, Croydon, Leeds, London, Manchester

Job summary

From healthcare to artificial intelligence, energy to national security, we provide legal advice to government departments on nation-changing subjects.

Department for Transport Legal Advisers (DfTLA) is the in-house legal team for the Department for Transport (DfT). With an exceptionally wide range of legal practice, 12 divisions and over 180 people, we are a large, friendly and welcoming team, with staff co-located with London clients in Great Minster House, and across our GLD offices in Bristol, Croydon, Leeds and Manchester Salford.

Transport touches the lives of everyone in the country. Across road, rail, air, sea and even space, our transport networks affect homes, businesses, schools, hospitals and more. It’s how we deliver goods to our shops, get people to work, school and health services, and reunite with our loved ones.

DfT works with its agencies and partners to support the transport network that helps UK’s businesses, creates innovation and growth whilst being safer, inclusive and greener. DfT plans and invests in transport infrastructure to keep the UK on the move.

DfT’s Secretary of State, Heidi Alexander, outlines her strategic priorities as

• Improving performance on the railways and driving forward rail reform
• Improving bus services and growing usage across the country
• Transforming infrastructure to work for the whole country, promoting social mobility and tackling inequality
• Delivering greener transport
• Better integrating transport networks

DfTLA is at the forefront of helping the Government to deliver its transport policies. Whether on domestic or international matters, our lawyers are involved across an exceptionally wide practice area with work split between public and regulatory law across all forms of transport, major infrastructure project work (including Private/Hybrid Bills through Parliament) and commercial work.

Our general advisory practice is broad and we advise on meaty, often cutting-edge policy areas. We have several of Bills announced for this parliamentary session, covering rail, aviation and autonomous shipping reform, and to facilitate road and rail infrastructure projects. There is significant focus on working towards decarbonisation of the transport system, and the legislation needed to achieve that.

We also have one of the largest statutory instrument drafting programmes in government and offer an excellent opportunity and support to develop drafting expertise. Current secondary legislation projects include regulation of automated vehicles and vehicle safety standards, implementing bus service reform and post-Brexit reform of the Channel Tunnel regulations. There will also be a significant programme of implementing regulations to achieve rail reform in the future.

About the Roles – Areas of Work 

There are up to 2 primarily commercial roles, both with line management:

1. Commercial Planning Lead – DfTLA provides legal support on transport-related planning policy development. The work ranges from legal support on planning consent applications for large transport infrastructure projects to working with other government departments on transport related planning reforms to legislation (primary or secondary) and guidance. The work is planning and environmentally focussed. The team also provides advisory support on litigation. We are therefore seeking lawyers with experience in planning law, whether national or local, and environment law to help contribute to the work of the Department.

2. Commercial Infrastructure Lead – DfTLA advises on all new rail infrastructure projects, including HS2, East West Rail, Northern Powerhouse Rail and the redevelopment of Euston Station and the regeneration of the surrounding area. The work ranges from advising on consenting regimes, procurement of complex services, subsidy control issues, corporate structuring and governance. The work is commercially focussed and we are seeking lawyers with a broad commercial expertise.

3. Rail Reform Lead x 4

We currently have 4 rail legal teams, with lawyers working across teams to advise DfT on the full range of its activity, including primary and secondary legislation, public law advisory, employment and industrial law advice, and advice on DfT’s commercial interests and activity.

There are expected to be up to 4 rail related roles in our rail teams, each of which will include line management responsibility.

This an exciting time to join with the creation of Great British Railways. Lawyers in our rail teams advise at the boundary of public law, statutory interpretation and drafting, and the commercial implementation of DfT’s policies and funding.

Issues on which our senior lawyers lead include:

• Policy advisory and procurement funding advice regarding rail fares, ticketing and retail. This can include expert commercially focussed policy and public procurement advice on future rail fares, retail schemes and policy delivery.
• Railways Bill advisory and drafting advice work, and advice on legislative and non legislative implementation. Issues range from funding & financing of future rail services, competition law to workforce and governance matters.
• Complex policy and technical SI drafting, for example in relation to train drivers' qualifications and standards
• Rail international issues including treaties, and the Channel Tunnel
• National rail workforce matters, including pay deals, handling of IR and strategic policy options for future rail structures.

4. Roads - International Vehicle Standards Lead – leading on comprehensive and agile regulation of vehicle safety standards and conditions, with significant impact on Northern Ireland, EU and international trade. Regulation is both international and domestic and includes work for cutting-edge technology, including AI. 

5. Roads - Road Safety Team Lead – leading on a range of work relating to road safety; including the legislative changes needed to implement DfT's recently published comprehensive Road Safety Strategy, regulation of the movement of dangerous goods, insurance matters, and contributing to the development of the UK's autonomous vehicle incident investigation regime.

The Roads Group has 3 legal teams that advise on all legal issues relating to the movement of goods and people by road. Our remit is fascinating and incredibly wide. It includes advising on infrastructure projects of national importance, major policy initiatives to reform public transport, international agreements to facilitate the movement of goods, as well as important measures to improve road safety.

One of DfT’s strategic priorities is to reduce environmental impacts, through tackling climate change and improving air quality including by decarbonising transport. We also advise on technical innovations with the potential to revolutionise road transport, including the development of autonomous vehicles and the continuing roll-out of electric vehicles and other low-carbon transportation solutions. 

Our work covers both primary and secondary legislation, procurement and commercial issues, and a wide range of public law issues, as well as regulatory and international law. We have 2 roles, each offering varied and stretching work with line management.

This vacancy notice is advertising for 8 posts within the DfTLA across 5 different roles. Candidates will be asked to indicate the role(s) they are interested in as part of their application, which will support the panel in making their selection. Please note that final role allocation will be based on the best fit with the candidate’s experience and skills and may not align with their first preference.

To apply for these posts, you will need to complete the online application on Civil Service Jobs.

Closing date: 13 July 2026

For further information or to apply, please click on the 'Enquire/Apply' button below.