Careers

Alison Royle

When I left university, I chose Babcock as the company that had the best graduate training. The scheme itself offers a wide range of opportunities, and the work really interested me.

I researched the scheme before I started, so knew fairly well what to expect. The first two years involve moving placements every quarter, so you get to experience different parts of the business and form a proper picture about where you want your career to go. So far, my experience has ranged from working on the Dounreay Goliath Crane to various logistics, stress analysis and strip down / rebuild projects for different submarine classes, such as the Canadian Victoria and the Spanish S-80. We’re encouraged to spend a lot of time on-site, experiencing practical engineering outside an office environment. By contrast, I also chose to spend three months looking at contracts, bidding and project finance with the commercial team, because the legal and financial side of project management interested me as something new. The commercial point of view is different from the engineering one, so it definitely adds a new dimension to your judgement.

We choose and organise our own placements – although naturally, your mentor will advise you on where you need to build up your knowledge. The responsibility increases as you go along – partly, you can drive that yourself through your placement choices. But however much you take on, you’re never left unsupported. Even on self-managed projects, I’ve always had managers and lead engineers to turn to if I ever needed advice.

While moving about every three months can be tough, the upside is that you get to build up a wide network of contacts across the business. The only frustration is that the changeover tends to come just when you’re really getting into something!

I think the major attraction of this scheme has to be its sheer variety. It’s exposed me to high-level design and manufacture and enabled me to move quickly towards chartership. Being able to work on every aspect of engineering over your first two years is good experience for anyone leaving university.

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