Hayley Pickering

"I love leading a team of people who all have different views and backgrounds. They make for the most interesting conversations and almost always lead to the best results! As an engineer, problem solving is second nature to me, but I do enjoy the harder problems that make me stop and think."

"I help to design and commission projects of varying size and complexity that improve safety, save on energy and increase our companies profits. At the start of any project, I will be presented with a problem. My job is to find the best solution that achieves what we need for the least amount of cost. I work with lots of different people on a daily basis, including operators, maintenance folks, contractors, technology specialists and other engineers."

"I knew I wanted a job that didn't involve me being sat behind a desk all day. That was the most important thing for me. I knew I liked chemistry, physics and maths, and I didn't like the idea of giving up either of them. Which is where I stumbled across Engineering. I was inspired by a female Chemical Engineer who came to my school careers fair over a decade ago. I don't know who she is and where she is now, but I hope she knows that I am where I am today because of her! I had no idea what Chemical Engineering was and how it impacts every single person's life. That is what sparked something inside me!"

"I love going on holiday, going on camping weekends with lots of hiking. I'm a huge film nerd and have recently got two new kittens who take up a lot of my free time! I enjoy going to the gym and keeping fit, and love to cook!"

"My typical day can be a real mixture of things! It can involve going out on site to scope out a project, hosting and attending meetings with internal and external people about a different project, updating drawings for another project, running calculations and computer models for yet another project! My project portfolio can include 10 or so projects at varying levels of completeness. The trick is to balance them and make sure you are focusing on the higher priority tasks first. But it is fun to dip your toe in so many different things at once!"

"A*AA at A-Level in Chemistry, Physics and Maths. 1st Class Masters degree in Chemical Engineering with a year's placement from the University of Bath."