The $20,000 (£11,000) on offer to the successful candidates contrasts with a daily wage of $15 that Halcrow pays highly skilled workers and the $3 it pays labourers.
The company currently employs 18 engineers from Basra on the 48 projects that it has won from the Coalition Provisional Authority South.
Halcrow will open its Basra office at the end of June, which is when the CPA South will hand over power to the Iraqi Transitional Government. At present, its staff are working out of the Diafa hotel.
Samir Fattah, a British citizen born in Baghdad who will head the Basra office, said: "We are looking for communications and technical staff. We will employ local people for a range of disciplines, such as structural specialists, water experts, draftsmen and marine structure experts."
Halcrow believes the pay on offer will act as an incentive for skilled staff to remain with the company, rather than join rivals in the United Arab Emirates.
In addition to generous pay, the recruits will receive three to four months' training in Dubai.
Halcrow has been concerned by the lack of training that Iraqi construction workers have received. Many Iraqi contractors pitching for the reconstruction work are little more than one-man bands, with limited expertise. The CPA South has drawn up a blacklist of contractors that it will not award work to.
Dick Trimble, Halcrow's head of Iraq operations, and several other western staff will leave when these projects are completed. It will then be up to Samir, to establish the office and pitch for work.
Trimble said: "In the long-term, we are looking to open an office in Basra. We will look for a secure villa compound."
Halcrow intends to send 20 senior people to Baghdad, after winning subcontract work in a $28.5m water contract awarded to CH2M Hill/Parsons.
n Glasgow engineer Weir said last week that it hoped to win work in Iraq.
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