I have had an interest and passion in railways and civil engineering, for which Network Rail seemed to be the ideal employer. They appeared to offer a wide range of roles and locations within the UK and are an organisation closest to the front line of the operational railway. The 75% discounted railway tickets are also a great bonus and have made me able to explore much more of the UK than I otherwise would be able to.
This is highly variable and depends on the placement you have organised for yourself on the graduate scheme, another benefit in itself. So far, placements with asset management teams can consist of a healthy and exciting balance of engaging office work and site visits, whereas placements with contractors will have you out and about and on your feet in orange all day.
Some of the schemes that I have taken part in above and beyond a ‘normal’ placement, such as engineering challenges have vastly improved my networking and financial skills. I came into the graduate scheme with a strong engineering and railway background but knowledge and skills which are important to engineering projects were not something I have been previously exposed to. Building a business case for an engineering project, communicating with staff from all walks of life and in a wide range of roles, learning about the real-life operational constraints of the railway and more besides have all been instrumental in being the best engineer I can be within NR.
For civil engineers within Network Rail, the two main pathways are Structures or Track. My placements have given me an interesting mix of both, where I have been working with track maintenance engineers on their data management issues, with structures asset maintainers to understand the condition of 100+ year old assets and plan maintenance interventions and with contractors on a £12m bridge refurbishment project.
Comprehensive and friendly! I have had several avenues of support available to me for any issue I feel that I may come across.
Working on several side projects while having a demanding standard placement. Managing workload and overlapping commitments has been a struggle at times.
I’ve had a mix of challenges from learning to use MySQL to manage large dumps of data to dirty site engineering in PPE all day and so far I have enjoyed most of it! The only type of placement I haven’t yet enjoyed are those where you find yourself waiting for information from other busy people all the time, but luckily, I have picked up several projects that I can slowly work on in the background to keep myself engaged.
The opportunity to work as closely as possible with the railway with other likeminded people. I haven’t been disappointed with the packages of work I’ve been able to help make possible, affecting real change of the day-to-day running of the railway.
Show your passion for the job in question, especially in the technical elements of the interview stages and the recruitment teams should have no option but to shortlist you! In the assessment centre of NR’s interview process I was able to stun the engineers into silence by exploring all possible avenues that they were looking for in the questions they posed to me!
