Roadways Director of Operations, owner and board member Viktorija Vasilauskaite Bailey has won the Women in Highways award at the 2026 European Women in Construction & Engineering Awards.
The WICE Awards celebrate exemplary women across Europe’s construction and engineering sectors, recognising technical excellence, leadership and diversity across the industry.
Viktorija received the award following a decade-long transformation of Roadways from a traditional regional contractor into a highly capable, self-delivery highways business. Based in East Sussex and working across local authority and strategic road networks, Roadways now delivers lower-carbon, safety-focused infrastructure solutions including cold bitumen emulsion based asphalt, HBM, road recycling, surfacing, civil engineering and reactive maintenance.
“This award is incredibly meaningful because it reflects what has actually been delivered by our people, our teams and our business,” said Viktorija.
“In 2021, being shortlisted felt like recognition of potential. Winning in 2026 feels very different. It represents ten years of operational change, learning, resilience and proving that safer, lower-risk and lower-carbon highways delivery is possible within existing industry standards.”
“When we bought Roadways in 2016, I came into highways from outside the industry. I had an engineering degree, but not the traditional construction route. Since then, it has been a journey of learning, questioning, building teams, fixing problems quickly, and delivering properly, always following our motto: Roadways the right way.”
The last few years have included cold bitumen emulsion based asphalt on the Strategic Road Network, HBM, National Highways work, PDF2 surfacing schemes, an award-winning Southampton road recycling programme, and more than 30,000 East Sussex reactive maintenance defects and call-outs delivered in less than 12 months during 2024.
But Viktorija said the award belongs to the wider Roadways team.
“This award bears my name, but it belongs to the office staff, site teams, plant operators, supervisors and operatives who deliver longer-lasting, more sustainable roads every day, while keeping our sites more than 3.5 years free of LTIs and RIDDORs.”
Viktorija could not attend the ceremony, so the Woman in Highways award was collected on her behalf by one of Roadways’ young engineers and project managers.
“It honestly feels like the best possible way to receive it,” said Viktorija. “To me, developing young talent and seeing the next generation of female engineers take the spotlight under my name is the ultimate validation of Roadways’ culture and success.”
Winning the Women in Highways award reflects Roadways’ commitment to safer delivery, stronger teams and better roads that last.
Roadways the right way – delivering lower-risk, standards-compliant highways with safety, sustainability, cost effectiveness and people at the centre.