Engineer a Career

Josh is back with more steps to build your way to a career in engineering.

This one's about the skills you already have and aren't talking about. You go to university or college, you get the degree but the part-time job, the society, the volunteering, the side project are all building capabilities employers want.

Most students undersell them, or forget they count at all.

Josh breaks down where these skills come from, the bar job, the Formula Student team, running a society's finances, managing a golf team, the AI side project and why they belong in your CV, your applications, and your interviews.

The message is simple: what you're doing right now is valuable.

Tell your story before someone tells it for you.

Follow the podcast on Spotify, YouTube, Apple, Instagram and TikTok and come along to an Engineer a Career event this academic year.

Follow Engineer a Career -LinkedIn: @engineeracareerInstagram: @engineeracareerTikTok: @engineer.a.careerYouTube: @engineeracareerWebsite: www.engineeracareer.co.uk

Episode 60 of the Engineer a Career Podcast, with Josh going solo at the start of a new academic year to reflect on his own engineering degree what he got right, and what he would do differently.Josh started his degree at Glasgow Caledonian University in 2010 and has since gone on to become a chartered engineer, a project manager, and a business owner. He walks through the decisions that shaped that path: joining the Institution of Mechanical Engineers within his first six months, helping revive the university engineering society, taking on the class representative role and finding himself sitting on industrial advisory boards, and choosing the sandwich route that took him to a placement with Volvo in Sweden. The common thread is a continual pull towards industry, from society site visits through to industry-sponsored BEng and MEng projects.The second half is the more honest part. Josh reflects on the time he did not spend understanding his own capabilities or tracking how his skills were developing, the pressure he put on himself to have a career plan long before he needed one, and the applications he left too late with graduate schemes opening in September, he argues the job search deserves to be treated like a module rather than an afterthought. He also looks at the routes he never properly explored, including a PhD, and makes the case for seeing the degree as a stepping stone rather than a destination.A useful listen for any engineering student heading into a new year, and a reminder that the value of a degree is decided as much by what you do around it as what you study in it.Follow Engineer a Career -LinkedIn: @engineeracareerInstagram: @engineeracareerTikTok: @engineer.a.careerYouTube: @engineeracareerWebsite: www.engineeracareer.co.uk

Josh sat down with Ryan to talk through his journey from electrical apprentice to chartered engineer, and how he ended up working as a senior project manager in Perth, Australia.

What stands out about Ryan's story is that nobody handed him the way in. He failed physics twice at school and never considered university an option. When he couldn't get an apprenticeship, he did a pre-apprenticeship course at college, and when that placement couldn't take him on, he printed a brochure, looked up twenty electrical companies and drove round Paisley handing them out door to door.

That is how he found the apprenticeship that started everything.

From there it became a long process of building it brick by brick. Night classes for an HNC while completing his trade papers, then a day release bachelor's degree, then a part-time masters, all while working full time.

Eight years of study without a free afternoon, and a fifteen thousand pound pay cut to make the move from the tools into design at an SME consultancy.

Ryan is candid about why he made that jump. There was nothing about being an electrician that he disliked, but he could not picture forty years of the same work.

That honest conversation with his line manager is what opened the next door, and it is a reminder of how much a good manager can change someone's direction.

The conversation also gets into what he now looks for when interviewing graduates in Australia, why intentional work experience matters more than a grade, and the free software anyone can download today to put a real skill on their CV.

Alongside that, there is a long-held goal to move to Australia, set during his first years as an apprentice and held through several pivots until it happened.

If you are trying to get your first opportunity, weighing up an apprenticeship against university, or wondering whether a trade background is a strength or a setback, this is an honest conversation about building a career without waiting to be picked.

Follow Engineer a Career
LinkedIn: @engineeracareer
Instagram: @engineeracareer
TikTok: @engineer.a.career
YouTube: @engineeracareer
Website: www.engineeracareer.co.uk

It's Episode 58, and it's time to share what it's really like being a member of one of our strategic partners, the Energy Institute.

Ubong Essien is a PhD researcher at the University of Strathclyde and Secretary of the Energy Institute Young Professional Network.

He studied mechanical engineering in Nigeria, where apprenticeships were not a common route into the profession and university was effectively the only path available. A master's in production engineering introduced him to sustainability and moved his interest towards energy. After a year working in the palm kernel oil processing industry he returned to academia as a lecturer, then began a PhD in Morocco before leaving after sixteen months and starting again at Strathclyde, where his research covers materials for fuel cells and ammonia decomposition as a route to hydrogen.

In this episode he talks about deciding whether a PhD is the right choice and what makes one worth finishing, how membership of the Energy Institute led to panel sessions at All-Energy and a feature in New Energy World while still a student, and why he believes the sector needs people from business, economics and marketing as much as it needs engineers. He also discusses where hydrogen realistically sits as a fuel, and his plans to commercialise his research after completing his PhD.

An honest conversation about building a career across three countries, and about taking opportunities that feel bigger than you are.

___

If you're student and you're interested in energy you can be a part of a global community of 20,000+ members from across the entire energy sector,j oin the Energy Institute for free -

https://www.energyinst.org/membership-and-accreditation/membership/membership-types-v2/individual-membership/student

___

Follow Engineer a Career -

LinkedIn: @engineeracareer

Instagram: @engineeracareer

TikTok: @engineer.a.career

YouTube: @engineeracareer

Website: www.engineeracareer.co.uk

Emma joined Network Rail in 2019 as a technical clerk, providing admin support to a team of civil engineers. She had no engineering background, she'd left school in 2000 with Highers in languages, and her route since had taken her through two unfinished degrees and a series of admin and call centre roles.A senior asset engineer asked whether she'd ever considered becoming an engineer. Emma hadn't. What followed was several years of self-directed study relearning maths from scratch, an Access course through Aberdeen, then civil engineering on day release at Glasgow Kelvin, funded by Network Rail. She moved into an assistant asset engineer role in structures, and last month started as an Asset Engineer in the buildings team.Emma talks about what it takes to retrain mid-career while raising a child on your own, the people who backed her before she'd proved anything, and why she feels a responsibility to the people coming in behind her.She also makes the case for site visits, explains why context changes how you read a defect, and describes the appeal of a discipline where doing the job well means nobody notices.This is what the Engineer a Career podcast exists for, the stories of today's engineers, told by the people living them.

Episode 56 of the Engineer a Career Podcast, with Josh joined by John Casey.

John Casey started his engineering career at 16, spending eight weeks of work experience at a wind farm in southwest Scotland after bombing his fourth-year exams and pouring everything into boxing.

Nine years on, he's a senior engineer who's returned to that very same wind farm, this time delivering its extension.

In this episode, John talks through the apprenticeship route that took him from four days on site and one day at college through to a civil engineering degree, and the honest reality behind a LinkedIn profile that looks like a smooth, gradual climb.

We get into the imposter syndrome of being the first in his family to go to university, the crunch point in second year when he nearly walked away from engineering altogether, and the mindset shift that turned his career around.

John shares why attention to detail and problem-solving are the skills he leans on every day, the role mentors played in empowering him to step up, and winning a regional ICE Princess Royal Award for his work on temporary works governance.

It's a candid conversation about integrity, hard work, and trusting your own way of thinking, whatever your report card says.

Katie started her engineering career at 18, turning down a university place to take an apprenticeship at Jacobs, a decision she had to make before she'd even sat her Highers.

Eleven years on, she's a Chartered Engineer who's worked on site at Grangemouth, spent nine months on assignment in Malaysia, and built her career the earning-and-learning way.

In this episode, recorded back at GCU where it all began, Katie talks through the apprenticeship route and why it suited her, the reality of balancing four days of work with a long day at uni, and the imposter syndrome that came with walking into an office at 18, including the two-minute trick she has used to managed imposter syndrome.

We get into life on site versus the engineering office, what it actually takes to achieve chartership, and why she's a believer in measuring your career against the UK-SPEC competences.

It's an honest conversation about backing yourself, asking the questions, and the long game of building a career one project at a time.

It's International Women in Engineering Day 2026 and this year we are so excited to introduce our guest Jessica Gagen.

Jessica is an aerospace sales engineer at Gulfstream Aerospace, a Miss England and Miss World UK winner, and one of the most visible STEM advocates in the country. Her route into engineering didn't follow a straight line, it went through a modeling career, a supermarket shelf, a physics resit at 23, and a pageant stage in front of cameras from 112 countries. But every step of it made her the engineer she is today.

In this episode, Jessica talks about why she chose engineering after reverse-engineering the careers of global CEOs on LinkedIn, what it actually means to be a sales engineer, and how skills from modeling and pageantry translate directly into high-pressure technical environments. She also shares her honest take on what holds young people back from engineering and what visibility really means when you're the first engineer to win Miss England.

Whether you're a student trying to make sense of where your degree could take you, or someone who still thinks engineering means overalls and a lathe, this one is for you.

Josh sits down with Mamta Singhal MBE, who found her calling early, taking apart plugs and mechanisms as a child long before she knew the word "engineer."

Inspired by James Dyson and a Tom Hanks film about a toy designer, she set herself a single goal: to engineer the things that make children smile. She studied product design engineering at Glasgow University and the Glasgow School of Art, landed a graduate placement at Dyson, and at 23 was working at Hasbro on Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and Action Man.

In this episode, Mamta takes Josh through a career spanning Hasbro, Coca-Cola and Mattel, and into her incoming role as Vice President of the IET. She talks about form and function as inseparable, the importance of company culture over title, and why she's never had a plan B.

The conversation moves into the territory that drives her now: getting more women into engineering and keeping them there, the role of male allies, mentorship as a duty rather than a favour, and her new venture, the Top Percent Club, supporting senior women navigating the altitude at the top of the profession.

Mamta is honest about the failures behind the awards, the Hoover rejection before the Dyson job, the dozens of knockbacks for every success and makes the case that engineering needs less stereotypical engineers, not more of the same.

A genuinely inspiring conversation about purpose, resilience, and leaving a legacy.

What does it actually take to build a career in engineering when the path is anything but straight?In this episode, Josh sits down with Susan Ipri-Brown, immediate past president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, one of the oldest engineering institutions in the world. From a grandfather who never doubted she'd follow him into the profession, to internships at General Motors, to teaching, to leading ASME, to starting her own company, Susan's "squiggly line" is a masterclass in adaptability.We get into the gap between what universities produce and what industry needs, why students underestimate the story they've already built, and how knowing your capabilities, including the ones you don't yet have, changes the way you grow. Susan also makes the case for professional societies as a place to lead before your job lets you, and reflects on what mentorship really looks like across a career.A genuinely transatlantic conversation on workforce development, self-awareness, and why engineering is, at its heart, about possibility.

Follow Engineer a Career -LinkedIn: @engineeracareerInstagram: @engineeracareerTikTok: @engineer.a.careerYouTube: @engineeracareerWebsite: www.engineeracareer.co.uk