Kieran Anderson
Trainee Construction Manager at OCS
How I got here
I did pretty well at school and knew I wanted to do something in construction. The careers advice at the time was basically: if you do well at school, you go to uni. If you don't do well, you go for an apprenticeship. So I went to university to study civil engineering full-time.
It was during COVID and I didn't really enjoy it. I couldn't see an ending, you know? You don't really know what the career is after until you get to the later years. I ended up dropping out after the first semester.
After that, I applied to be an electrician with different companies. OCS had a look at my CV, but instead of offering me an electrical role, they invited me in for an interview for a trainee construction manager position. I was lucky enough to get accepted.
I've been doing it for about three years now. It's a graduate apprenticeship, so I work four days a week on site and spend one day studying towards a civil engineering degree. The only thing I wish is that I'd found out about apprenticeships like this sooner.
What I actually do day-to-day
I'm on site about 90% of the time. The only exception is when a job's about to start and we're still in the planning phase, then I might be in the office preparing. But mostly I'm out there, whatever the weather.
Right now I'm on a solar canopy project for Scottish Water. We're installing solar panels on canopy structures in a public car park. A typical day might start with inducting some new groundworkers onto site, making sure they know the safety rules and what's expected.
Then there's the quality checks. We had stubs coming out of the foundations that needed to be within half a degree of level, because the rest of the structure sits on top of them. I was checking plumbness, checking distances between centres, making sure everything lined up. Luckily it all came back good.
Later that same day, we had a big GRP housing unit being delivered. That's basically a box for electrical switchgear. Because it's a public car park, we couldn't disrupt traffic during the day. So we got the lorry into a working area, waited until the car park quietened down, then got it offloaded and pinned down to the concrete. That was home time at about 7pm.
No two days are the same. That's sort of construction. Some days you're doing quality assurance, some days you're dealing with deliveries, some days you're troubleshooting problems. It's a constant firefight of making sure things are done correctly.
What I enjoy about it
The experience and the career paths. There's so many directions you can take. You can go into design, you can go into management, and the ceiling is really high. Essentially you can make your way up and up in this career.
I like being outside. I would not want to be stuck in an office all day. The project manager I work with is basically five days in the office, maybe out once a month. That wouldn't suit me at all.
And there's something satisfying about seeing things get built. You start with a car park and some drawings, and by the end you've got these solar canopies standing there, actually generating power.
What you learn on the job
Technical knowledge helps a lot. I'm studying civil engineering, so I understand the theory behind what we're building. I understand what needs to be in place to get a good final product. I'm not doing the hands-on work myself, but when we're doing checks or planning the works, I can understand the scope and spot faults during snagging.
The interpersonal skills are massive though. You're constantly talking to subcontractors, giving them instructions, making sure there's no confusion about what needs doing. I've learned that when you keep people on side and they actually like you as a manager, that's when you get the best out of them.
You can't get complacent. Things might be going well on site, but that's exactly when you need to stay on top of progress, stay on top of health and safety. The moment you relax is when something goes wrong.
My advice
I wish I'd known about graduate apprenticeships earlier. At school, the advice was pretty clear: do well, go to uni. But that wasn't right for me. I'm getting a degree anyway, but I'm also getting paid, getting experience, and not building up debt.
If you're academically good but also practical, an apprenticeship might suit you better than full-time university. I tried both, and this is definitely the right one for me.
The career paths from here are wide open. I can go into design, I can stay in management, I can work on different types of projects. Right now I'm in the energy division, doing solar and district heating. But the skills transfer across construction.
I'm happy where I am. There's a lot still to learn, but I'm getting taught properly and building up experience that'll set me up for whatever I want to do next.
