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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Wayleave Coordinator

💰 $ - $

OperationsLegalLand & WayleavesPermitting

🎯 Role Definition

The Wayleave Coordinator is accountable for the end-to-end management of wayleave and access consents required to install, maintain or decommission plant and cabling across private and public land. The role coordinates landowner negotiations, prepares and issues legal documentation (wayleave agreements, licences, easements), manages internal and external stakeholder engagement (project teams, contractors, local authorities and solicitors), tracks progress against project timelines and ensures accurate recording of land rights in GIS and asset registers. The Wayleave Coordinator supports project delivery by removing access and consent blockers, administering compensation and ensuring compliance with company policy and relevant legislation (land law, highways and utilities regulations).

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Land Administrator / Land Records Clerk
  • Project Coordinator or Planning Coordinator (Infrastructure/Telecoms)
  • Field Engineer or Streetworks Coordinator

Advancement To:

  • Senior Wayleave Coordinator / Lead Wayleave Specialist
  • Wayleave Manager / Head of Wayleaves & Consents
  • Land Rights Manager or Head of Property & Estates

Lateral Moves:

  • Permitting Manager / Streetworks Manager
  • Land & Property Advisor / Rights of Way Advisor

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Manage the end-to-end wayleave and access consent process for assigned projects, including identifying required permissions, initiating applications, negotiating terms and tracking completion to meet project delivery milestones.
  • Identify affected landowners and occupiers, conduct proactive outreach and build strong working relationships to secure timely wayleave agreements, licenses, easements or temporary access arrangements.
  • Prepare, draft and issue legally compliant wayleave and licence documents in line with company templates and solicitor guidance, ensuring clear scope, duration, compensation terms and conditions.
  • Negotiate commercial and non-commercial terms with landowners and third parties, including compensation, access windows, reinstatement obligations and safe working arrangements; escalate complex negotiations to legal counsel as required.
  • Coordinate with internal stakeholders (project managers, civil engineers, construction teams, design teams, asset managers) to capture technical requirements that must be reflected in wayleave documents and site access arrangements.
  • Maintain an accurate, auditable register of all wayleaves, licences and consents (electronic and paper), ensuring records are updated in GIS, asset management systems and land/property databases.
  • Conduct and record land registry searches, title checks and ownership verification to validate counterparties, identify covenants or restrictions and advise on title-related risks to projects.
  • Submit and manage statutory and local authority applications where required (highway authorities, planning, street works/planning consents), coordinate streetworks permit applications and manage associated fees.
  • Liaise with external solicitors, surveyors and agents to support complex rights, easements, leases and legal completion processes; manage instruction packs and approval workflows.
  • Organise and attend site visits and landowner meetings to demonstrate works, clarify scope, handle objections and agree practical mitigation (access routes, protective works, reinstatement).
  • Prepare and manage compensation schedules and payments to landowners and occupiers, ensuring approvals, invoices and authorisations are in line with company policy and project budgets.
  • Manage variant and change requests for existing wayleaves; issue amendments, extensions or surrenders and ensure changes are reflected in the central register and asset records.
  • Track and report performance metrics (KPI: consent acquisition lead time, outstanding wayleaves, cost of acquisition) and provide regular status updates to project governance and programme stakeholders.
  • Proactively identify and mitigate risks to delivery caused by consent delays or landowner disputes; produce risk assessments and propose contingency options to project managers.
  • Coordinate with construction and site teams to ensure agreed access conditions are implemented, site reinstatement delivered to specification and any breaches are remedied promptly.
  • Respond to and manage claims, disputes or complaints arising from wayleave activities; conduct investigations, gather evidence and work with legal/claims teams to resolve escalated matters.
  • Ensure compliance with data protection and confidentiality obligations when handling owner/occupier information and maintain secure record management in line with company policy.
  • Support the creation and continuous improvement of wayleave processes, templates, checklists and workflows to reduce friction and increase acquisition speed across programmes.
  • Input and maintain accurate mapping (GIS) and location metadata for affected assets and rights, ensuring spatial data aligns with legal documentation and operational needs.
  • Facilitate renewals and expiries management: monitor licence expiry dates, prepare renewal notifications and prioritise renewals to avoid interruption of services or access.
  • Work collaboratively with finance to reconcile acquisition costs, manage budgets, chargeable works and cost recovery where appropriate; prepare cost forecasts for wayleave activities.
  • Support audits and compliance reviews by compiling documentation, transaction histories and evidence of due diligence for wayleave and land-rights transactions.

Secondary Functions

  • Provide ad-hoc support to programme teams for land-related queries and contribute to cross-functional project meetings to highlight wayleave implications.
  • Assist in training and mentoring junior staff, contractors or temporary administrators on wayleave procedures and record keeping best practices.
  • Contribute to vendor and supplier selection and management for external agents (surveyors, solicitors, mediators) used in the acquisition of rights.
  • Participate in continuous improvement initiatives, documenting lessons learned from complex negotiations or dispute resolutions to refine templates and negotiation playbooks.
  • Support digital transformation of wayleave activities by testing and implementing improvements to CRM, GIS and consent management platforms.
  • Prepare monthly and ad-hoc status reports and board-level briefings on wayleave exposures, timelines and financial commitments.
  • Undertake simple title enquiries and assemble due diligence packs to support property/legal teams during conveyancing or registration activities.
  • Assist the environmental, health & safety and compliance teams by providing access and consent data required for site risk assessments and permit-to-work processes.
  • Coordinate with asset disposal or decommissioning teams to surrender redundant rights and ensure property records are updated following asset changes.
  • Support acquisition of third-party consents required for joint-works, shared wayleaves or wayleaves affecting multiple asset owners.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Demonstrable experience drafting and administering wayleave agreements, licences, easements and associated legal documentation tailored to utilities, telecoms or energy projects.
  • Solid knowledge of land registry searches, title check procedures and basic property law as it applies to wayleaves, easements and rights of access.
  • Experience negotiating commercial terms with private landowners, tenants and commercial landlords and recording agreed terms for legal sign-off.
  • Familiarity with streetworks and highway permitting processes, local authority consents and the practical requirements for works in public highways.
  • Proficiency with GIS/mapping systems, spatial data capture and maintaining asset location metadata for rights and consents.
  • Competence using CRM, consent management or asset management systems (e.g., Salesforce, ArcGIS, Trim, SharePoint) for document control and progress tracking.
  • Strong administrative capability in preparing instruction packs for external solicitors, managing purchase orders, invoices and compensation payments.
  • Ability to interpret technical drawings, site plans and construction programmes to identify consent and access implications.
  • Basic project management skills: planning, prioritisation, milestone tracking and coordinating multi-party dependencies.
  • Experience compiling KPI reports, risk logs and status dashboards for stakeholders and programme governance.

Soft Skills

  • Exceptional written and verbal communication skills for clear, persuasive landowner engagement, stakeholder briefings and correspondence.
  • Strong commercial awareness and negotiation skills, able to balance project cost control and relationship management.
  • High attention to detail and accuracy when creating legal documents and maintaining registers; strong record-keeping discipline.
  • Resilient problem solver with the ability to manage conflict, overcome objections and escalate effectively when needed.
  • Excellent organisational and time-management skills, able to manage multiple live consents across concurrent projects.
  • Empathetic stakeholder management and diplomacy to work with diverse landowners, occupiers and statutory bodies.
  • Proactive, outcomes-focused mindset with the ability to take ownership and drive consents to completion under tight deadlines.
  • Analytical mindset to assess land-related risks and present pragmatic mitigation options to project leads.
  • Collaborative team player who can work across commercial, legal, engineering and site delivery functions.
  • Customer-facing professionalism, tact and discretion when handling sensitive negotiations and personal data.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • A-levels / High school diploma (relevant experience in land, utilities or construction will be accepted in lieu of degree).

Preferred Education:

  • Degree or HND in Land Management, Real Estate, Surveying, Law, Geography, Civil Engineering or a related subject.
  • Professional qualifications (or working towards) in land, property, surveying or project management (e.g., RICS training, CILEx, PRINCE2).

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Land Law / Property Law
  • Surveying / Geomatics / GIS
  • Real Estate / Estate Management
  • Civil Engineering / Infrastructure Planning
  • Environmental Management

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 2–5 years’ experience in wayleave, land rights, permitting or property administration within utilities, telecoms, energy, rail or civil infrastructure.

Preferred:

  • Proven track record securing wayleaves, licences and consents on multi-site programmes or rollouts (fibre, power, substation, cable works).
  • Experience working with external legal teams and managing solicitor instruction packs and completions.
  • Prior exposure to streetworks, highway authorities and local council permitting processes.
  • Experience using GIS and consent management systems to maintain accurate land-rights records and reporting.
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