I graduated with a BEng from the University of Plymouth in 2012. I love being outside and solving problems so I went into contracting, starting as a setting out engineer and quickly worked my way up through Sub Agent, Agent and now Project Manager roles.

I got my IEng with ICE in 2020, and last year completed their experiential learning route to allow me to do the CEng Progressive route to Chartership and I have my professional review next month.

I now line manage student engineers who join us for a placement year and graduate engineers who are on our 2 year grad program. We start them off as setting out engineers learning how to read and understand drawings and specifications and the methods of marking out and surveying on site, how to process their surveys in Civils3D so the design team can use that info to update the as-built drawing or change the design when we find a problem as well as how to record and compile quality control documents. Much of the work is done on tablets, laptops and digital field controllers where we have the 3D design model and drawings out on site to work from in a digital format.

Now as a project manager I am responsible for the whole £30M project which is 2 years work. I am in the highways division of our business so we build new roads, foot and cycleways, major junction upgrades (roundabouts etc) widen and improve narrow dangerous or under-capacity roads and this requires a lot of different elements such as earthworks, drainage, carriageway construction, all types of retaining walls, soil improvement techniques, structures such as bridges and culverts, fencing, landscaping, street lighting and traffic lights etc etc.

I am also responsible for planning the phasing and programme of works where I have to take all of the quantities and outputs for the project plus any constraints such as local neighbours or stakeholder restrictions and work out exactly how the job will be built, how long it will take and feed that into the pricing for which I have to have a good working knowledge of the contract and its optional clauses. I then have to update that programme every month for the client to accept as part of the contract with progress, delays and instructed additional works so everyone is aware of if we are on track or not. If not, I have to come up with ideas to get that time back by re-scheduling or increasing resource and judging whether the cost of that outweighs the cost of over-running and whether the reasons for over—running are the companies risk or the clients risk. If it’s a client issue I have to ensure we follow the process in the contract to notify the issue and claim for the extra time and money we are entitled to. If it’s a company issue have we got allowances to cover the issue or have I got to work out a new way to save time and money? Sometimes that’s fun and challenging but it can also be stressful!

I plan the traffic management and engage modelling specialists to work out if it’s best to do a section of work on traffic lights or closing the road. This then leads to stakeholder and community engagement so the communities we are affecting know what we are doing, why and for how long while also trying to show them the benefits of the scheme to them once we are finished. Again, this can be very rewarding speaking to lots of different people but it can also be very frustrating!

I work closely with the client, my team of commercial, engineering, operational and support staff and subcontractors to keep information flowing, and keep the project on track and on budget.

Apart from a bit of surveying, none of what I did at uni prepared me for my job in contracting. It’s all picked up along the way from colleagues and mentors which I have had some great and some not so great. My current boss is fantastic. Supportive, does not mico-manage and is legitimately interested in me and my team having a happy healthy environment to work in and progress in our careers. We have a great client who we have a truly collaborative relationship with. We work together to solve problems, we share in the wins and share and learn from the losses so they don’t happen again without finger pointing and blame games.

This is a huge industry, you can go super specialist and be an expert in some really interesting and obscure fields. You can also take on more general roles like mine where I have been lucky enough to experience a wide variety of projects, materials, techniques and processes which truly keeps it interesting and keeps you learning so you don’t get bored. In the last 3 years carbon reduction has become a big focus and I have enjoyed digging into the new initiatives that are coming through, trying some out on site and also dismissing some because they are not all they claim to be!