My journey to engineering
Tilly is a Project Engineer in the Renewable Development team and she’s currently studying for an Engineering degree, sponsored by SGN. Here’s the story of how Tilly ended up in Engineering.
How it started
I started at SGN in 2014. I worked in Maintenance Projects for four years before moving to Network Planning. My role wasn’t operational but the project team were brilliant at getting me involved in technical training – courses like High Pressure Connections and Introduction to Pipeline Corrosion. Without these courses, I’d never have seen myself as an engineer.
Support to develop
I’ve been so lucky to have amazing support from my managers and the teams around me, pushing me to grow and develop. I was introduced to other colleagues who had done an Engineering degree through the Open University and I started to see it as a possibility for me. I’m now three years in and while some aspects have been more challenging that I expected, it’s already helping with my work.
If I hadn’t had supportive managers – pushing me to be my best and giving me time off to accommodate the residential parts of the course – I can’t imagine how difficult it’d be to try to study alongside working. Getting the course paid for made all the difference too.
Where I am now
Earlier this year I moved into my current role in biomethane – I’m so excited to be involved in renewable energy, which is going to be such an important part of our future as a country.
Whether it’s biomethane or hydrogen, I can definitely see myself staying in renewables development – it’s something I’m so interested in and that was a big reason I wanted to do the Engineering degree to begin with.
Women in Engineering
There are a lot of barriers for women going into engineering. In tutorial groups of 30 on my course, invariably 27 will be men. So I’m pleased that SGN has set up a Women’s Network to help women in their career development. I’ve already signed up and I hope that sharing my story might help other women start to see that a career in engineering is a possibility.