BSc Project Management for Construction,
University College London
When I went to the presentation at uni I remember thinking: ‘This is amazing – more like a party conference’. And what really impressed me was that it was last year’s grads who were making most of the actual presentations. I knew Balfour Beatty had a huge reputation anyway, and I reckoned that if they were this professional over something like a campus event, they have to be pretty professional over everything else they do.
My present job is Assistant Construction Engineer on the
NW Gas Alliance project. It’s a joint venture between us and National Grid, replacing gas mains right across Manchester, Cheshire and Merseyside – one of the most densely populated areas of the country. It’s a seriously big project – you’re looking at 500 operatives working on any one day, and 500km of pipework replaced every year.
I’ve received a lot of training since I joined. And what really impressed me was the range of topics it covered, not just engineering or technical subjects, but things like planning and design, financial aspects, project management techniques – far more than I’d been expecting. They’d invested some serious money on training, you could just tell.
On a daily basis, it’s my responsibility to make sure things get done. I have to drive the progress of the different gangs working on the streets and roads, ensure everything complies with legislation, and complete the validation packs so that each new piece of the job can be signed off. Customer satisfaction is one of the biggest parts of my job. It’s one of our key performance indicators, and we have to meet our targets before we can get paid. So I have a lot of contact with all kinds of customers.
The future? Well, one of the things that attracted me was the feeling that you can do almost anything, go almost anywhere with Balfour Beatty, as long of you show you’re really serious about it. My next step is to become a fully trained and qualified Construction Engineer. But for now, I’ve got plenty to keep me busy.
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