Company Review - Software Development Engineer Leighton Employee Review

Some genuinely good people and, historically, it used to be a great place to work with strong culture and ambition.

There seems to be a heavy focus on bringing people in on permanent contracts without the long-term business pipeline to support them. When new business doesn’t land, restructures and redundancies quickly follow. Over the past few years, it has felt like one restructure after another. Leadership often presents a very polished picture externally, but internally there is a high turnover of consultants and employees, creating a revolving-door environment rather than somewhere people can genuinely build a long-term career. By the time many employees leave, confidence and morale have been significantly impacted. There also appears to have been significant investment into areas such as the AWS and business development teams, with a large amount of internal focus and politics surrounding these functions, yet many employees questioning what measurable commercial return was actually being generated. Meanwhile, other areas of the business continued to face cuts, increasing frustration across teams. Cost-cutting and stripping back across different areas of the business has noticeably changed the culture from what it once was. A few years ago, this was seen as an exciting and supportive place to work, but the instability and lack of direction have unfortunately overshadowed that in recent years.

I worked with modern front-end technologies including TypeScript, React and Redux, and gained experience on a large, high-profile client project. Some colleagues were supportive, and the client environment offered exposure to large-scale delivery.

I joined after an AWS-focused interview process and initially worked with Terraform and AWS, but was soon moved onto a long-term front-end-only project with no cloud involvement. The client site was around 200 miles away, despite my contract specifying a 30-mile commuting radius, and I was expected to commute weekly largely in my own time on top of a 35-hour working week, without compensation for the additional travel time. I raised concerns early about the role mismatch, travel expectations, and a known health condition that made prolonged sitting difficult, but no meaningful adjustment was made. Given the high turnover and uncertainty around available work, I felt pressured to continue accepting the commute because I believed refusing unsuitable work could put my role at risk. I was later asked to sign a new contract removing the commuting radius and to formally change my job family to Front-End Developer, despite that not being the role I joined for. When I declined, I was told I would need to go through a panel to move into cloud engineering. I was also subject to a formal investigation that I felt could have been handled more sensitively, with clearer communication and a less isolating process. The situation caused significant anxiety and required me to take time away from work. I was eventually removed from the client project, with profitability cited as a factor, despite the client having indicated interest in continuing the engagement for another six months. I was also unable to continue with the client through another company due to restrictions linked to the digital exchange programme enforced by Leighton, despite this being wanted by other parties involved. Shortly after being placed into the talent pool, I was made redundant on the basis that there was no suitable work available and nothing foreseeable in the pipeline.