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Working in the British Engineering Scene

The Opportunity

How to Prepare

FAQs

 

 

The current demand for engineers from overseas with a work visa, British or EU passport in many specialisations is strong and increasing. The challenge is to uncover the opportunities that best match your experience relatively quickly.

Over the past five years, the recruitment industry for engineers has been under extreme pressure. As a result, less than a handful of recruitment agencies still exist that are great at assisting people from overseas. At Workgateways we uncover these agencies and equip you with the tools needed to thrive.

 

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The Opportunity

How to Prepare

Finding a Job  

1. Cut to the chase by simply registering with specialist recruitment agencies for engineering recruitment and that are focused on helping people from overseas - ideally before you arrive.
   
   
2. Discover the opportunites available by reading the information below.
   
   
3. Begin applying to specific engineering jobs. (When you register at step one, you can choose to recieve jobmail)

 

Formatting Your Resume 

• Be Specifc: 

  Be sure your resume includes specific details of your project experience. This is the most common challenge for recruitment consultants – ‘not enough information or detail!’ For example, for each project indicate the type of project and work carried out, your job position, your duties and responsibilities, the approximate project value, duration and project result if applicable.

• Relevant Sotware Skills 

It is very useful to include the industry software packages with which you are familiar or proficient – either under each project or in a separate ‘Relevant Software Skills’ section.

For more assistance on British resumes in engineering — see our section on How to Write a Resume.

• Include a Maximum of 5-6 Projects: 

  If you have far too many projects to list, please choose five or six representative projects.

• Tailor Your Resume for Each Application

If the scope of your project experience seems too wide – you are better off leaving information on and your UK recruitment consultant can tailor your experience to a given job.

 

Tip: You can upload and update your UK engineering resume for your WORKgateways file at any time from your log-in. Your resume is then online and can be viewed by the UK based construction recruitment companies with whom you choose to register.

 

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 FAQs 

 

 

Have a quesiton we haven't answered here? Contact Us

 

 

 

Get Started:

 

Find Jobs

Apply to Agencies

Video Transcript

Quinn: All good day and welcome to WORKgateways. My name is Quinn and today I'm super-excited to welcome Alex Wraith. He's from a fantastic company called Amida Recruitment. And the reason I'm so excited to have him on is because he's actually an engineer himself and he's going to be talking about engineering recruitment. Amida is a company that has offices all around the world and they're excellent at placing people in the UK but also around the world. But I'll let you talk a little bit about that Alex, welcome. Great to have you on. Super-excited to talk to you.

Alex: Thank you very much, Quinn. Really good to be on. Very pleased to have a chance and talk about engineering here in the UK, the recruitment market here in the UK. Yeah you quite were right. We've got a good track record of working with candidates from overseas in particular from Australasia and yeah really really keen in this current market conditions to be engaging those people. They want to come and enjoy some time here.

Quinn: Yeah awesome. It's just such a fantastic opportunity and just to find out all about how the market works, how, you know, to make the most of the opportunity if you're coming from overseas. So tell us a little bit about yourself. What's your background and how did you end up in recruitment?

Alex: Yeah. How I ended up in recruitment, well I was a structural engineer first. Did civil engineering, then did structures. I actually went to a company for an interview as a candidate with structural engineering and they thought I might make a good recruiter. And a few conversations and interviews later I was an aspiring trainee, and 11 years later, I'm still here recruiting principally structural engineers but across the consulting engineering market and mostly in the UK but of course, a lot of British consultancies are doing a lot overseas. So it’s our office network. I was servicing all of those clients and yeah some great opportunities for construction engineers and at all disciplines of engineers at the moment absolutely. And Amida itself we're about half the company's in London, where I think a lot of overseas candidates perhaps are looking first is London. We do cover the whole of the UK and me I personally got involved in the southwest in Wales but London itself of course is red, red hot. And many of my colleagues in the London office, probably about 50-50 split. I would say half of them or so are actually Australians and New Zealanders. The MD himself is a New Zealander and so we got lots of first-hand experience in the company of making the move and we get a massive amount of connecting and I guess we do a lot of connections through the fellows and the guys we've placed 10 years ago who've got that network. Yeah we were always really, really keen to talk to new talent and people who want to come and be here and now is a really, really good time.

Quinn: Yeah.

Alex: A really good time.

Quinn: So things have seemed to really turned around in recent months or has it been steady demand?

Alex: I think the last yeah the last couple of years I think I mean obviously it was tough times through 2008, 2009 and onwards but I think a lot of our bigger clients do compete very well internationally. They maintain their position throughout those tough times. There were other businesses that perhaps were more exposed maybe because they work in narrower sectors or geographies but it was of course a tough time. But coming out of that, all of our clients are showing really healthy growth in great market conditions. I think the whole industry has become leaner as a result of the hard times and has sought new markets as well and is competing even better internationally. So I think if you've come to the UK at the moment, you can expect to work on our iconic projects here at home. So for example the client's working on premiership football stadiums, rugby world cup venues which is of course later this year, big developments, regenerations, the railing for structure. We've got huge projects on Crossrail at the moment. We've got the electrification of the railway so they just got the whole host of projects at home both in buildings and infrastructure. But internationally you can expect to be working on… I mean the middle east is a bit of a hot bed We've got huge projects at the moment, I'm recruiting on a 55-storey tower out there right now. We're recruiting a team of infrastructure guys who are working on a new city in Saudi, Jeddah. So there's incredible work that's being delivered from the UK.

Quinn: Wow fantastic. Yeah think that's relatively new, isn't it? Used to be the more was coming domestically and now it seems far more international. Would that be fair?

Alex: Yeah, I think that's fair. I think that's fair. I think there's probably a greater proportion work with domestic whereas now we're seeing more and more just real diversity and real diversity from business to business. Of course we work with a lot of different clients who are competitive in different sectors and who have I guess different values and focus as a business. So there really is something for everybody at the moment. And yeah as I say whether it's buildings or infrastructure you want to work on, and whether you're a structural engineer or a civil engineer or a mechanical engineer or an electrical engineer, there's these great, great opportunities to deploy skills and of course sample life here in relatively nearby countries. Explore everything that's within an hour or two on the plane, out of London or Bristol or wherever you're based.

Quinn: Absolutely. And when you talk about where a lot of these companies are based, is it sort of the southeast or I know it used to be traditionally London and then in the greater London, so around the sort of M25, so you could easily get in to London but I understand now it's sort of more in addition to that, you've got the bigger cities. Is that Bristol?

Alex: Absolutely, yeah absolutely. I mean London is the biggest hub of course, but we've got huge centres in Bristol, which is in the southwest of England, in Birmingham, in Manchester, in Leeds, in Cardiff which is the Welsh capital if you like. We go a little bit north of border at Edinburgh but the major cities, most of our guys are well-represented in major cities. London probably has a greater critical mass of the nice little boutique firms. There are I guess again just because there's more people there, you get more off-shoots from the big brands, you need more guys setting up and the investment so there's some really nice little boutiques in London. But we have them in Bristol and Cardiff as well. It's just a great, great market I think across the board, as I say we're needing talented people.

Quinn: So all industries, you mentioned civils. Would that include water engineers, and design infrastructure? Like the whole . . . .

Alex: Yeah absolutely. So development yeah development infrastructure, highways, civil structures like bridges. We got lots going on there particularly I'd say with the rail sector as well as a highway sector being busy. Building structures, building services consultancy, say, the water sector. It's really, really very broad at the moment. It's across the board. But for good people who've got the right ethic, the opportunities are there at the moment. They really are.

Quinn: Speaking of right ethic, what do they think of Aussies and Kiwis and people from overseas?

Alex: Generally speaking, Aussies and Kiwis and others from overseas have done very very well with great feedback from clients over the last 11 years or so. I mean I was placing structural units because that was my narrow specialization, my side out from Australia and New Zealand in particular with my clients in the southwest of England back then and great feedback. Some of these guys are still here now. Two year trips turned into life-long trips but yeah great feedback. Now generally we have some good quality degrees which are recognized over here with our professional institutions. So many of the guys and girls who studied Australia, in New Zealand, in South Africa, and other countries can work towards chancellorship here which is recognized back home in those countries as well. They have reciprocal agreements with those countries which is great.

Quinn: Yeah absolutely. And we talked a lot about engineers. What about the technicians so say CAD designers and people like that, are they–.

Alex: Equally, equally really good demand, yeah really good demand. I mean we're again across all the sectors we've mentioned, and particularly we're seeing there's an acute shortage of rivet structure technicians, so it's the technicians that have got good experience in rivet structure maybe anything from a year or more premium for that time because there's a shortage at the moment. Microstation is something we've seen in the rail sector. I know on the civil side, I see quite a lot of candidates from Australasia who use 12D which again is used by some of the clients over here. But no, really healthy demand, really healthy demand. Again be coming over with the right attitude and right ethic, you can really get the most out of the experience and certainly there's opportunity for you, definitely.

Quinn: And tell us, so somebody's just come over and they had let's say a couple of years of great experience. What sort of time-frames are we looking at to actually get a job and how does that work?

Alex: Well I think we can almost line it up now. I think the important thing is to connect with the right Amida consultant early in the process, I think as early as possible. And I'd probably start marketing. for example, I was talking to a structural engineer, I'd get as much information as I could upfront. I think if we've got a project portfolio that shows potential employers exactly what they've done, what they've delivered to-date, and that gives then your potential employer of what they might be getting together with some references, then I think we can really give that a push, a month or so, maybe two months before the candidate is arriving. And we can line up Skype interviews before they arrive. And some clients I mean have actually been placing candidates before they've arrived recently through Skype interviews but sometimes it's beneficial to actually wait until you've arrived. You might decide that maybe we can line up three or four interviews before you get here, but then you actually go and have a second interview face-to-face. And perhaps that gives you the best opportunity and truly it gives the employer the best selection opportunity, which gives you the best. You can actually make the people in field office and get a stronger feel for the role. Depends what you want to do but yeah we can line it up before you get here. The important thing is to connect early and obviously we've got a date in the diary for arriving. We can all work towards that.

Quinn: So like from the time they land on the ground, could they potentially be working the following week?

Alex: Yeah that's exactly what it is. I mean if we lined it up before they arrived, they could be landing and starting literally the next day. Or we could line it up, we could pick clients for interviews for the week they arrive. And they could be starting a job the following Monday, or whatever.

Quinn: And what about the amount of experience that the person's got. What would be the sort of minimum that you would like to see I think as I understand it, qualifications obviously are important but probably more important is there's some experience. You're not really competing with the other graduates that are coming out.

Alex: You don't know. I think there is. You're quite right. I think anyone who's got I think for an engineer 12 months experience would be kind of minimum. Demand is much greater for people with perhaps three, four, five years experience. And maybe seniors, people who are chancellor, just chancellor or approaching chancellorship, maybe practising as senior engineers. But anyone in that plus one year through to senior, there's very high demand for those people. Now on the technician front, I think you probably realistically with probably four or five years technical experience in order to be very valuable from day one. But if you've got maybe less than that but you've got some of the shortage software skills like the Revit structure or 12D that might be sooner. I would say this if you're keen to do it, connect.

Quinn: Yeah.

Alex: Let's have a chat. See if we can do something now. If not, we can give you some advice about and then we can meet in the future.

Quinn: Yeah I would say it's really up to the if you're wanting to come across, ask the question. Like I think it's a great question to ask, look is this enough experience. Yeah I think so in terms of the types of employment, a lot of people from home in Australia for example, most people tend to be in a permanent role before they come over to the UK whereas in the UK, you've got a very dynamic employment market that involves contract as well. Can you give us some sort of breakdown on how that works? What's the difference? And how does that work?

Alex: Sure, okay. Well the permanent employment obviously not much the same as the home countries and that you're there for the long-term and you're investing in your career and your employer is investing in you and probably professional development. All of those things and you're moving on up the career ladder. Senior associate, associate director, director and being part of running the business ultimately, if that's what you're aspiring to do. Whereas we have a very active contract market over here which is more about resourcing short-term resourcing projects so when a company has an unsustainably high work-load or maybe that they need an extra five people to deliver this project but they don't want to hire five permanent employees for whatever reason, which might be they're not there to hire because there's a shortage of talent. But then they'll look at the contract market and that's when you can come in and deliver a project. So whether it's six months, or nine months, or whatever it ends up being and then work on an hourly rate basis. So all of the benefits you'd receive as a permanent employee are wrapped up into an hourly rate and there's a bit of a premium on top of that. So per unit of time, you receive more but obviously you're not getting the same investment in your career if you like. But you are getting the experience and for all intents and purposes, anyone looking into the office wouldn't see the difference in terms of what you're doing. It's a different dynamic because you're temporarily—but yeah you get a bit of premium for that in terms of what you see in your bank account each month.

Quinn: Yeah and for somebody let's say, we've got a lot of people come over with an ancestry visa or a British passport even and obviously, they can slide right into a permanent role just as easily as a British person. But somebody with a holiday work visa with two years is I mean are employers interested in them for permanent roles or does it depend on the industry a little bit or, how does that–.

Alex: It would depend on demand certainly. I think what many employees would be keen to do is offer a fixed-term contract to employ the individual. So in that case they have exactly the same contract as a permanent employee and they are treated exactly the same way as a permanent employee. But there's an end-date on the contract which would align with the end of the visa. Probably what would happen in that circumstance is the company would look at how they could employ the individual for the long-term. And it's likely that that fixed term contract would become a permanent contract in the future through sponsorship. You know you see a lot of the particularly bigger firms are well-geared up to sponsor people from outside. But more typically, I think people that come over from two years more typically they will work contracts because at the end of each month you will have a little bit more money in the bank and it gives you real flexibility. A lot of people, who are doing that two-year trip, are going to go and travel and enjoy the nearby countries and travel within the UK so nice not to be tied down to a 25-days holiday per year. Much better to be able to say, “Okay, we're coming up at the end of that project, I'd really like to take a month out to go to Italy” or wherever it was. And that's what we'll do. Or at the end of a contract, great, that project's out of the way, I'm going to enjoy four weeks in Italy and we'll line up the next job for when we come back type of thing. So I think that often works better to people who are doing it. It depends on the circumstances, isn't it? Depends what you want to do but those great options are there.

Quinn: Yeah okay terrific, fantastic. Yeah terrific opportunity and in both 25 days holiday is pretty fantastic in the world scene as well.

Alex: Yeah you get 25 days annual leave and you get eight days bank holiday which is not too bad, not too shabby at all.

Quinn: Yeah that's huge compared to some parts of the world. Terrific and I want to, if I can, I'd want to put you on the spot a little bit in terms of the rates and I mean, I know you can really only just give ballparks but maybe you could give us some idea in terms of sort of two to five years' experience, five and over or something like that for both contract and permanent.

Alex: Okay absolutely. Well I guess the range of people we're talking about coming over grant plus one through to... I mean occasionally I guess, we'll talk to an associate, an associate director, director but I mean the band's you talked about, grant plus two to grant plus five, you're probably looking at between depending on the discipline and the location, because again it's very, very broad and any specialist skills, I'd say the minimum for grant plus two in a less expensive part of the UK would be maybe 26,000 per annum and then perhaps, in say, London, in a shortage sector, maybe 30-ish, 32 something like that. And the plus five would be anything from 30, 31 to around probably 42, 43, and again in a more expensive part of the country with shortage of talent and that would be fairly typical contract-wise, you're probably looking at maybe twice for that range of people again two to five, you're looking at probably maybe 18, 19 pounds per hour through to probably 30 pounds an hour, something like that. More experienced engineers with specialist skills could up to about 40 pounds an hour. And then on the tech side, realistically we're looking at it's probably late teens again per hour through to around 30 per hour for someone with maybe Revit structure. And on the permanent side, anywhere between early 20's and circuit 40 for the good guys, maybe a little bit more with say a bit more experience and again, with the right software skills.

Quinn: That's for fairly specialist work.

Alex: Yeah. I mean it's a broad range and we're talking about broad range disciplines and locations so it's difficult to apply the range but again we're really, really pleased to talk to people, great to talk to people. We can give them really good advice in terms of—I think it's the case of what do you want to achieve and we can talk about how much of it we can get at the moment, it's a great market. You can maybe achieve a lot of the things you want to do.

Quinn: And honestly, I think when you're talking about the type of experience that somebody's going to be getting while they’re over there, like that can't be beaten in terms of experience you're going to be able to put in your CV. And if you come home with that experience, it's just fantastic and can take you to just another level in your career. So I encourage people to come over and just get that experience so that they can move forward with their career but also get involved with some fantastic opportunities, have some fantastic projects and just a different work environment too which is in a different culture and obviously get the European travel. Yeah. So I think we've covered pretty much all the important elements of the demand for people over there. But for somebody that was thinking yeah this sounds great, I want to do this, what will be the sort of best things that they could do to make sure that they land the best jobs or put their best foot forward to make good things happen?

Alex: I think it's put together a good CV, resume, we call it CV over here, curriculum vitae, which again we can give you feedback on the CV before we present it to any clients. I think if you really want to get ahead of the game, you can create a project portfolio and include some written references from your previous employers. I think the portfolio and the references give tremendous confidence to potential employers. And then we've got the best possible opportunity to line things up for you early. And that you need to build a relationship with a good recruiter who knows the space really really well. And again we're all specialists at Amida with 40 arm-strong here in the UK. We've got a specialist for each discipline and location. So really we can represent you extremely, give you good advice, and then represent you the right way to our clients. And that's it, good good preparation, connecting with the right people and you can achieve what you want to achieve at the moment. Definitely. It’s that.

Quinn: Awesome. That's great advice. In terms of connecting with the right people, obviously applying through our website for example, or even directly through your own website to jobs that are suitable, but then once you go in contact with somebody, would you advice them to pick up the phone, to have a chat, get up late at night or whatever, whatever it takes to make that happen?

Alex: Yeah absolutely. Yeah I mean we can get up early or we can get up late and knowing absolutely we really want to connect with people as early as possible whether that starts with an email. But yeah, as soon as possible, let's get on. We have great tools, like this like Skype. Let's have a video conference, build a relationship, start to understand each other and yeah take advantage of that and know that let's connect as much as we both deem is necessary to get the desired outcome. But I think for me it's keen to build a relationship. I mean obviously as a recruiter, we're investing our time and we're representing somebody from a long way away to our clients who trust us. And so we need to have that relationship and it's great we can do that over Skype. And then meet face-to-face when somebody's here of course. But yeah, all of those things help build the confidence which then enables the best opportunities to come to fruition.

Quinn: Yeah awesome, awesome advice. Thank you. And so I guess just to wrap it up, I've just wanted to make sure that people are putting their best foot forward. How do people get in touch with Amida and make sure that they're getting put forward to the right consultant and then good things happen?

Alex: Okay. I think anyone who's applying through a—did you say applying directly to a job will be getting through to the right person. There's of course the WORKgateways website and the link to our company profile. I mean I'll perhaps give you some details. I think it's all there actually. We've got the website, and we've got the email link on the website. I mean perhaps we could even talk to you about afterwards maybe adding in disciplines and locations to add to our profile so that people can get there even more directly. But if you send something to Amida, it will end up getting to the right person because we're very keen to talk to the right people and so any structural engineers that are keen to come here, I look forward to talking to.

Quinn: Awesome. Yeah we've got a great system in the back-end where basically anyone who comes through our system to you gets funnelled through to the right consultant. So yeah it's exciting. I mean I'm excited for everybody who's thinking of going over there or on their way because it's just so great. I know how great it was and how great it is again. It’s just a wonderful opportunity for anybody coming over. So listen, thanks so much for your time, Alex. I really appreciate your wealth of knowledge and you've got a lot of wisdom there as well. So I really appreciate your time today and I'm sure everyone listening to this appreciates it as well. Thank you very much.

Alex: Thank you very much, Quinn. Really good to talk and we look forward to talking to anyone who's watched the video. Thank you very much.

Quinn: Great. So cheers.