Helen Rowe

"My personality types are absolutely spot on. I use my communication and team working skills every single day and love being able to influence decisions by talking to people, listening to people and organising resources to meet what people need. I am a people person, I love collaborating with others and finding the best solution with the resources available.I thrive being part of a team and bouncing ideas off of others. I enjoy the challenge of motivating people to work together to achieve a goal. Being able to deliver things on time and on budget is a really important part of my job and is something I find I get a lot of satisfaction from. I have very high standards for myself and others and I want to help people meet that standard. "

"I work with a leadership team responsible for all local authority highways in the area I live. I lead four teams of Engineers, Inspectors and Technicians to look after structures, tunnels, vehicle restraint systems and geotechnical systems on that highway network. This means one day I could be looking at a project like the new tunnel for Lower Thames Crossing, and on another day looking at improving access for all over a footbridge to a local school. I manage multi-million pound budgets and really enjoy how the decisions I make can really impact my local community in a positive way. I also get to work on how we can achieve Net Zero by 2050 and love exploring different sustainable options we can use. One of my favourite parts of my job is inspiring new Engineers to learn and gain confidence in their abilities, work out what they really enjoy and helping them to do more of that! In my day to day, I don't need to be super good at maths, I don't have to wear high vis clothing and go out on site in mud, but I AM an Engineer. I use my problem solving engineering skills to solve real world problems in my community and work with a huge variety of different people to do this. I started my career in a Graduate Civil Engineer role on a salary of £27,000. Since then I have learned and developed as both an Engineer and a Leader for 7-8 years and in my current role I earn £62,000 per year. "

"I started my career as an Administrator for an Architects firm straight after finishing my A-levels in college. I had no experience at all in buildings or the environment but within a few months I was absolutely hooked. I was really lucky and the organisation I worked for began training me to do technical drawings and 3D modelling. I did this for 2 years and then sadly got made redundant due to the global recession in 2008. I didn't want this to stop my new found passion so I looked at what options I had for continuing in this field - I ended up applying to study at university in a range of subjects: Architecture, Civil Engineering and Construction Management. I ended up going for Civil Engineering because it was such a broad subject and allowed me to explore what I really wanted to do for the rest of my career. I had to do a foundation year to get my maths and physics up to the standard needed, and then did my full masters in Civil Engineering. Civil Engineering is such a huge subject and gives sooooooo many options for your future career, despite studying for 6 years I didn't really know all of the options available and decided I wanted to use my early career to explore these. I graduated in 2015 and began working as a consultant engineer - this is more design focused and uses lots of calculations and computer programmes and drawings. In 2017 I swapped to a contractor role - this is site based and involves coming up with practical solutions on the spot, lots of communication and the inevitable high vis clothes and boots.This then led me to joining a client organisation in 2018 and I have been in this role ever since - working for a client my role is all about managing what you already have and deciding what you want in the future. I manage budgets, projects, teams and the key is creating a really good team to deliver a project and make sure it is a success. Communication and organisation skills are the most important things for my role as a Client and as an Engineer. In 2020 I successfully achieved Chartered Engineer status and this has opened a huge number of doors for my career. "

"I am quite active, I have pets including a dog and enjoy taking my dog for a walk every lunch time. I am a qualified trampoline gymnastics coach and enjoy going kayaking in my spare time.I love reading and learning and spend a lot of my spare time listening to podcasts (true crime, feminism and design based podcasts are my favourite). I also have a passion for doing DIY, I love learning how to do new things, use new tools and create things with my hands. "

"I spend most of my day at a computer or in person in meetings and workshops. Collaboration is a huge part of my day. Often people come to me with a problem they might want to talk through or help making a decision. Other times my collaborative skills are needed to connect people with different skills and resources with each other to achieve a goal, I know I do not know everything or have all the answers, my main role is to put the right people together to find these things out together.I spend a lot of time working on reports and spreadsheets too, keeping track of budgets and project progress. I manage large framework contracts and monitor performance of suppliers on those contracts, this means I keep track of how these suppliers are doing against a set of markers, these can be anything from social value for the community, sticking to budget, sticking to time scales, how they are achieving carbon reduction. I also have to spend a lot of time trying to predict the future! This is really challenging but also good to try and pin down based on real life facts and possible trends. For example at the moment I am trying to predict how long my bridges and tunnels might last for until they need my team to do some work to them, from minor painting to major reconstruction. I'm also trying to predict how the challenges facing the world like the war in Ukraine or the coronavirus pandemic or Brexit might affect my work directly, so that could be in the cost of steel going up, difficulty recruiting qualified staff, issues getting materials into the UK etc. All of these problems need solutions and working out those solutions is a big part of my job, it involves lots of creative thinking and charting my own path. "

"Full time college: AS Level - Biology A Levels - Philosophy and Ethics, Psychology and Sociology Night school college whilst working: City and Guilds Levels 2 & 3 in Computer Aided Design Full time degree (6 years!): Masters Degree - Civil Engineering In engineering its possible to go straight all the way through to a masters, its called an MEng. It means one student loan, one certificate and one slightly longer stint at University. I had to do a foundation year as part of my course to get my maths and physics up to A-Level standards. I also did a placement year as part of this and spent a year in industry for my 4th of 6 years of study, this was a really nice \"break\" in the middle of a long period of study and was paid so I got to earn a bit of money too. Professional Qualification whilst working:Chartered Engineer"