Meet our engineer

My name's Holly. I'm an engineer in the design and development team in Wales and South West. We're out on the Kennet & Avon Canal near Crofton Pumping Station. I love that part of my job is being out on the canal, even when it's raining, looking after it for the future. I love that I'm working with some really old assets. So, some of the locks on the canal on this canal are 300 years old, even older. So it's great that I get to work alongside such heritage assets. 

I wasn't aware that the Canal & River Trust had an engineering department. I didn't really know what they did, I suppose, when I was looking for jobs. But what really appealed to me was working with heritage assets. 

I joined on the graduate scheme for engineering, which was a fixed three-year, four-year scheme, going around different engineering roles and teams. So as part of that, the Trust has helped me gain lots of experience. I spent time in the asset management team, in the project management team, in some of the asset strategy teams looking at lock gates, and now I'm in the design and development team. So, I've managed to gain a whole range of experience, which has been really good for my professional development. I work with some really great women who I think of my I see as my role models. A lot of them really shaped my experience here to be really great, really positive, and definitely shown me what I can do as a woman in STEM. 

A lot of the time I'm out on site. So my region covers the Kennet & Avon Canal, but also the Monmouthshire & Brecon Canal. So I'm out long days a lot of the time visiting sites that are going to have works done to them or visiting stoppages. So for example, this week I'm out on some lock stoppages. So where they're going to do some lock gate replacements and then the week after I'm out on the Monmouthshire & Brecon Canal looking at some bridge repair works they're doing. I say I'm proud to be making a difference. 

I can be proud that the work I do is out on site and getting done and improving the network for future generations. I definitely recommend the Canal & River Trust, such an interesting place to work. So much going on. There's lots of opportunities and you're looking after a network that's really important.