Site Engineer : Too Late to Change

Galway_2016

Hi Everyone,

I've been working as a site engineer for the last four years, three in the UK and the last year in Ireland. I would say that I've gained good experience as I've worked in a couple of different areas; civil groundworks, gas industry and roads, and I enjoyed the majority of that time. However in the last 6 months or so I've become unhappy in work.

I'm finding the bs that goes on on site is getting too much and it's affecting my life outside of work as I'm becoming narky at home. I'm also finding the long hours difficult. Although I've no family of my own at the minute I would hope to one day and being away from them for 12 or 13 hours a day, everyday would break me.

I'm considering a move into a consultancy but my worry is that I've been out of college for so long I'll of forgotten everything and a company will have to invest too much training in me to make it worth their while. Would this be the case?

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

TL;DR I've been work as site engineer for 4 years, am I too long out of college to get a job in a consultancy?

Dr_Bill

Short answer is no.

I would prefer a young professional engineer to have site experience, they have an good understanding of how things operate in reality and going forward that knowledge will be an asset. There is plenty of time for theory which is an important consideration but so is practical solutions for actually constructing something which you will have garnered from your time on site which will give you an edge.

con1982

Go for it! Lots of consultancies will want a young engineer with site experience. You'll take a pay cut in the short term, but in a couple of years you will be back up to a good salary.

Most of the work I do as a consultant engineer is not tricky design. Max 20% of my time is pure design. The majority is meetings, site inspection, drafting (or preparing sketches) and reviewing docs. If you are organised and like construction, you will be fine.

annfield1978

One option is to get into the Client Side supervising Construction as Employers Representative/ Senior Resident Engineer site. The Consultancy Company I work for has an ongoing need for site based staff on a number of road schemes across the country. we also looking for design staff. Those with site experience have more common sense when it comes to practical design solutions sp PM me to discuss

Galway_2016

Thanks everyone for your responses.

I thought the experience I had earned on site would be of benefit to me so it's nice to hear it from people in the industry.

I will be honest and say I never really fully appreciated what a consultant did, but as you've described it Con it sounds exactly what I want to do!

Now to get the CV updated and hope that, with the academic year finishing, all the graduate positions haven't been snapped up already.

Dardania

I agree with everything said so far about site experience being invaluable when designing - I will however add that, in my opinion, there are two personality types for engineers, and each is suited t either pure design or pure construction.

IMO a designer must be optimistic in order to design; they must believe they can overcome the problem in front of them.

Whereas the classical site engineer needs to be a pessimistic, trying to find what the designer hasn't thought about (and solve those problems)

So yes, site experience very valuable - but if you do move to consultancy, be wary of casting too critical an eye on your early design efforts