[7] After an announcement on 27 June 2013 by Danny Alexander, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, it became a government-owned company with the name Highways England on 1 April 2015.

[9] In 2020, the agency launched an advertising campaign using the song "Go West" by Village People and covered by Pet Shop Boys.

[16] The manual is produced by National Highways in conjunction with the devolved governments of Wales,[17] Scotland[18] and Northern Ireland.

Following this, the government produces a draft RIS setting out the high-level outputs that National Highways will need to deliver within the corresponding Road Period, alongside the proposed funding.

For Road Period 1 (2015–20), Highways England invested around £15 billion in its network, with additional funding to address other local challenges in proximity[clarification needed] of the SRN relating to the environment; air quality; cycling, safety and integration; and growth and housing.

The rest is for operating, maintaining and renewing its roads, and further funding to address challenges on the environment and wellbeing; users and communities; innovation and modernisation; and safety and congestion.

[34] The service is based at Quinton, Birmingham and is responsible for providing accurate, historical, real-time and predictive traffic and incident information to businesses, the travelling public and National Highways' operations.

[34] It collects real-time traffic information from over 10,000 fixed sites on the motorway and all-purpose trunk road network from MIDAS and Traffic Monitoring Unit (TMU) electronic loops in the road surface and automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras at the roadside.

[36] It processes this data to create useful intelligence for operational decision making and dissemination of current and predictive information to the public using the 4,600 roadside variable-message signs,[37] the Highways England website[38] (including a mobile version), social media channels such as Twitter and the telephone-based Highways England customer contact centre[39] as well as distributing information to the media and businesses through a number of data feeds.

[41] In 2009, fleet tracking has been deployed to assist area teams to manage their specialist winter maintenance vehicles during the cold snap.

[42] National Highways employs uniformed traffic officers; on-road and control room, as well as specialist staff for work in engineering, surveying, accountancy, and administration.

[44] National Highways is a private company limited by shares, wholly owned by the Secretary of State for Transport.

[45] The National Highways Board is the primary governance arm of the company and is accountable to the Secretary of State for Transport.

ORR is responsible for monitoring and enforcing the performance and efficiency of National Highways, and advising the Secretary of State for Transport on its compliance against the Road Investment Strategy and Licence.

[50] In May and June 2021, the space under the road bridge at Great Musgrave in Cumbria was filled with 1,600 tonnes of aggregate and concrete by Highways England, ostensibly for what HRE managers considered safety reasons.

[51][52] Accused of 'vandalism', Highways England were forced to apply for retrospective planning permission,[53] with Eden District council receiving 913 objections and only two expressions of support,[54][55] and government intervention to pause National Highways plans to infill dozens of other Victorian bridges across England.

[58] After the Great Musgrave outcry, National Highways developed a new way to assess the abandoned rail bridges and tunnels it controls, with decisions reviewed in collaboration with experts from heritage, environmental and active travel sectors.

[54] At Congham in Norfolk, a railway bridge designed by the pioneering M&GNJR engineer William Marriott was infilled by National Highways in 2021.

[59] An 1847 skewed masonry arch at Rudgate near Tadcaster, designed by John Cass Birkinshaw for the Harrogate–Church Fenton line, was infilled by National Highways in 2021.