Even though many of our graduates will have progressed in their careers since completing a case study, they are still of interest to students who wish to gain an understanding of the world of work.

As the asset assurance electrical engineer within a new central team of five, I am an internal consultant, auditor, and subject matter expert for electrical equipment (value c.£500M). I advise on technical, business, competency, and regulatory issues across five plants, 80 electrical/instrumentation staff, and two technical authorities.

My role encompasses many dimensions, including developing technical standards, training requirements, and assuring audit and safety compliance. This often entails developing and tracking reporting systems for management and proposing and leading improvement projects. My explosion-proof electrical devices work has incorporated the above, leading to my proposal of a risk-based maintenance and digital reporting system, addressing inefficiencies that will save £300k annually.

Earlier this year I was nominated to attend a technical conference in France, joining 40 delegates across INEOS globally to develop stronger networks and improve collaboration across the company. Recently, I leveraged this network to source critical, obsolete spares to reinstate plant operations within five days

• Audited & provided assurance on large critical power systems worth £10M; identified & presented key risks & mitigations to Director to improve reliability. Currently leading proposed reliability improvement project worth £100k.
• Developed risk management strategy for inspection of explosion proof equipment; proposed solution results in savings worth £300k per annum.
• Strategized & implemented audit framework for c. 2000 pieces of explosion proof portable equipment in 4 weeks; achieved 100% compliance for external audit; prevented penalties £50k-100k.
• Delivered technical due diligence on a production critical machine worth £0.5M; proposed real time operations trending KPIs to reduce maintenance downtime & increase reliability.
• Restructured the engineering standard for variable speed drives, footprint worth ~£0.6M.

It is a sea of knowledge, there are people who have 30-45+ years of oil and gas, general engineering and project management experience. So everyone has a story to tell, everyone has a lesson to offer, which means you are learning even when you are not directly working. The intriguing part is that even after so much experience they sometimes also still struggle to find a solution because the challenges are just that much harder. But after team work and collaboration, everyone gets to a working solution, which is amazing to see!

Even though it is serious work and get intense sometimes, the work life balance is amazing! There is a lot of time available to get back home and get involved in a range or hobbies and activities.

Being an internal consultant in a decentralised organisation, my biggest challenge is becoming a trusted advisor and demonstrating added value. Understanding business objectives, communicating with care, demonstrating integrity and courage, yet being tactful, are all essential for this role.

During my early days at INEOS, I investigated a significant electrical incident that narrowly avoided becoming a fire. My study revealed that because of cost-cutting and misinterpretation of the standard, an essential electrical testing routine had been discontinued as it was deemed not to be legally binding.

My recommendation to reinstate this procedure met several hurdles; the first being lack of trust. As an unfamiliar face carrying out the investigation, I was perceived warily and people were neither forthcoming or responsive to my suggestions, even though they were in the company's best interest. The second hurdle was to demonstrate added value; I highlighted the fact that a marginal increase in costs could reinstate the procedure using our existing contractor, not only preventing such incidents, but also protecting us from prosecution for negligence.

This experience taught me that earning trust is a slow process which requires transparency, fairness, patience and empathy. Being constantly asked for advice on key technical issues and being listened to by management and plant engineers alike is both a source of encouragement, and an endorsement that I am making progress.

Within engineering, Oil & Gas, and Mining are set in probably the most challenging environments. Upstream Oil & Gas facilities are more often than not located in challenging harsh environments, for example my first project location was in the middle of the desert, the nearest city being 8 hours away by road. All equipment is located in or near a flammable atmosphere, which presents challenges of its own.

The design of any such facility from an engineering point of view has to be advanced, resilient, robust, safe, fail-safe whilst being simple and cost effective. Hence, there is scope for some really innovative engineering. Inevitably it is tremendously multidisciplinary and broad spectrum, so one needs awareness of other engineering disciplines to understand overall impact. Thereby, learning opportunities on the job are tremendous.

Similarly in an Ops environment you are always on your feet troubleshooting issues at a much faster pace, so your basic knowledge is tested against your decision making criteria at every step.

University was a stage to discover the fundamentals, this kind of a stage is to understand those fundamentals fully by applying them everyday. Plus there is scope for all verticals: design engineering, operations engineering, production, project management and delivery and of course the overall business picture.

Electrical engineering fundamentals learnt as a part of the MEng degree, but mostly it is learning on the job for everything. Every industry has their own standards for design and engineering, which are established and improved over a long period of time, hence it takes time to learn those standards and practices, but having a degree obviously helps!

Introduction to Finance & Economics for Petro-technical Staff
Capital Value Process - Basics
Project Management Essentials
Facilities Engineering for Production
Corrosion Awareness
Hazards of Hydrocarbons
Major Accident Risk Process
Electrical Engg Fundamentals for Facilities Personnel
Comp-Ex Hazardous Area ‘Competency’ Ex 01 /02/03/04
ETAP Power Systems Modelling
Instruments & Controls Fundamentals for Facilities
Safety Observations Conversations
Electrical Protection Systems
Electricity At Work Regulations
IEE Wiring Regs: 17th Edition BS7671

CompEX Competent Trained.
Electricity at Work Regs Competent.
Wiring Regs Competent.
Electrical protection system design.

In the near future I see myself taking a permanent position within the asset care team either in Sullom Voe or in a similar operations environment to further the hands-on operations and maintenance experience. This is very crucial to become a professional engineer since it helps to really understand what works in the field and what does not.

I have already established myself as a strong engineer at leading companies BP and INEOS. Post-MBA, I intend to return to the energy industry through a leadership development program at an integrated operator or contractor such as Statoil or GE. Advancing my career in operations strategy will facilitate my transition from engineering to general management and business development. Longer term, I aim to manage the investments portfolio for energy and climate change at transnational development institutions such as the Commonwealth Development Corporation or Asian Development Bank, helping to achieve a balance between the conflicted areas of development targets and renewable energy investments.

My "touch and feel" oil-and-gas experience, forged in tough conditions at iconic and intricate plants, has developed my comprehensive understanding of field operations.

Highly adaptable and challenge-driven, I am as comfortable supervising technicians in Shetland's gale-force winds as I am delivering difficult news to the Operations Director in the boardroom. I am a skilled project manager, an empathetic leader, and am used to navigating complex organisational structures. I have frequently demonstrated my ability to capitalise on synergies; for example, advising the M&A team to retain specific contracts in an acquired company proved directly beneficial to INEOS.

In an industry where electrification is a major challenge, it is advantageous to be an experienced electrical engineer. Likewise, having worked across segments (upstream, midstream, and downstream) and functions (projects, engineering services, planning, and assurance), I can visualise the granular impact of high-level business decisions. Studying at an international university and working in multicultural teams at multinational corporations, I have developed my global outlook and networks - both are key to a successful career in the complex energy industry.

I think the biggest deficit I become aware of when I joined the industry was the lack of my knowledge of the engineering standards. It was overwhelming because every senior engineer seemed to know these by heart! But not to dismay, as you go through that core engineering experience you start to pick these up very quickly. But in order to be able to pick them up you have to always go back to first principles i.e. things learnt at university and even school! A lot of the knowledge gained at university is volatile and floats away if you do not make an effort to retain it.

So looking back I would definitely say that do not consider them modules/courses as just exams or assignments (although it would feel that way a lot of times!) but consider them to be an interesting story or something that really appeals to your mind, and always try to understand what is happening physically in the real world! How does a mathematical formula or law of engineering manifest itself in the real world, and always ask "so what?" A gives B, B gives C, and C gives D..."so what?" Where did we start and where did we end? A lot of design engineers get lost in their designs and overlook small issues which manifest as major flaws in the field, and similarly many short sighted fixes in the field can be catastrophic to the system, hence a decent engineer should be able to achieve the right compromise using his judgement, intuition and background knowledge.

Also at the end of university learning has not come to an end, instead it is just the beginning, so you need to be willing and hungry to learn more!

Getting that first job right is crucial and was the hardest thing to achieve for me! Even more than doing well at university.

So Begin early! Start looking for jobs as early as possible! You have 2 or 3 summers before you graduate- utilise these for crucial summer internships! Dabble with different engineering companies in your field and see what it is like and more importantly find out what you don't like!

To actually find a job I started to look for jobs even before my 4th/final year started. I segregated companies into their fields - even within Oil &Gas for example there are so many different fields - design, engineering, procurement, construction, oil field services, inspection, maintenance, project management, supply chain etc etc.

And this is true for every sector, and as a university graduate you have the option to choose ANY of them which can be more debilitating than helpful. Hence, it is important to have clarity. This will also help shape your application and CV because although they may eventually work in the same industry the skill set in each is different and so you have to present your best but different foot forward for each of those different areas. This process also helps to introspect and discover what you really want to do!

In terms of the actual process, I think taking many numerical and verbal reasoning practice tests help a lot, they boost your confidence and accuracy. For applications generally every company has set competencies they look for and so it is important to relate your experiences to those competencies. University is the best place to gain these competencies there are so many clubs/societies/teams/opportunities to get involved in that gaining competencies like leadership, teamwork, communication, respect, excellence, time management, performance management should be in abundance.

For telephone interviews get a mate and just perform mock interviews, structure your answers, speak aloud, hear yourself, and keep refining the answers. For assessment centres the best advice is "Keep Calm & Carry On". Do not let the nerves get you, remember there are always other jobs and there will be more assessment days, so one does not matter either way. Once you see it this way, tackling those problems on the are easy! And to be honest the problems people solve in assessment days are not extraordinary, but people mess them up because of nerves and that is what they are looking out for - who performs ordinary tasks exceptionally well under pressure.

All roles till date:

INEOS Chemicals - Olefins & Polymers - Electrical Assurance Engineer.

BP - Global Operations - Dalmeny & Hound Point (FPS) - Planning Engineer - Elec/Inst/Mech/Integrity.

BP - Global Operations - Midstream - Sullom Voe Terminal - Asset Electrical Engineer (graduate program).

BP - Global Projects Organisation - Oman Khazzan Electrical Engineer
(graduate program).

London Olympic Games 2012 (BP International plc) - Summer Placement.

Dalkia Energy Services - Project Engineering Analyst - Electrical Summer Placement.

KPMG Advisory, India - Risk Analyst (Intern) - Summer Placement.

Siemens Energy - Project Analyst Intern Summer Placement.