The firm is the first to react to planned cuts, which look set to trigger a second wave of job losses through the consultancy sector.

The consulting engineer laid off around 1,000 staff worldwide just over a year ago, with around 120 jobs going in the UK.

WSP would not disclose the number of redundancies but confirmed it was in consultation with highways staff.

In a statement it said: “WSP is experiencing the same challenging market conditions as our competitors.

“The recent measures by the Government to reduce the UK budget deficit have resulted in changes in our workload, and it is therefore necessary to align our resources and cost base to our future workload.”

“This means that some colleagues working in the UK road sector may be at risk of redundancy due to lack of work. We are consulting with staff accordingly.

“We are endeavouring to minimise redundancies by working closely with staff that are at risk and redeploying, where skills are transferable to the other sectors and regions in which we work,” the company said.