U5 Careers Talk with National Highways

On Monday 29^th November, U5 were joined via Teams by Garry Packer from National Highways (formerly Highways England) and Jill Hayden from Atkins who spent time talking about their career journeys and the decisions they have made along the way.

Garry didn’t know what he wanted to do when he was at school and didn’t attend university until he was in his 30s when he also gained a Masters in Transport Planning. Garry has worked on several different projects from garbage disposal systems on submarines with the Navy to replacing traffic light systems to those that no longer require bulbs. Replacing the bulbs in the 33,000 traffic lights in operation around England every 6 months was very time consuming and expensive!

Jill took more of a linear route to her current role and knew what she wanted to do when she was at school following careers talk from an engineer. Jill studied for a general engineering degree at Durham University, followed by a Masters in Control Engineering. Jill completed her PhD at the University of Manchester and posed the question ‘Can a human control an engine better than a machine?’.

Jill now works on developing intelligent transport systems such as smart motorways and ramp metering.

Garry and Jill spoke about the skills a successful engineer needs such as problem solving, attention to detail, communication and the ability to explain a problem in a way that everyone understands.

Garry finished the session with this insight, “Scientists come up with new and exciting discoveries and ideas and then engineers turn these into something useful for society”.

The aim of the session was to help raise awareness of different career pathways and introduce careers students may not have considered.