Site Engineer Review

I worked with Laing O'Rourke this summer on a residential tower superstructure site next to Canary Wharf called Wood Wharf Tower. I very much enjoyed the work on the site and felt part of the team who were there. Everyone was friendly and accommodating, making me feel comfortable to ask questions in order to learn more about the business.

The team from Laing O'Rourke at Wood Wharf were very accommodating and made me feel welcome from day one on the project. They supported me with a mentor in the first few weeks, gradually giving me more responsibility and tasks to wokr on by myself. Overall I felt greatly valued by the team at Wood Wharf.

Support and guidance was excellent from everyone at Laing O'Rourke on the site I worked on. I was given a mentor to work with and learn from, but felt I could ask anyone questions if I didn't understand a process on the site. Everyone in the office was very welcoming to questions and gave time to me.

The pace of work on site is very busy which means I learnt a lot on the placement as a result. The busy nature of the work means that the days go quickly. There are times when the work seems too busy but once I got used to the pace, I felt I learnt a lot more than I would if it was slow.

I was shadowing a mentor for the first few weeks of the placement which allowed me to learn a lot about the processes. Once I felt confident in this and the team at Wood Wharf thoguht I was ready, they gave me more individual work and responsibility on different tasks.

The skills learnt on site are quite different to what I learn on my degree. It is a lot more practical based and I see how a building site is run. That being said, the fact that I have seen how a building site is run makes it a lot easier in design based projects at university.

The site office at Wood Wharf was very friendly and a good laugh. Everyone was very friendly and chatty. That being said it wasn't so noisy that no work was being done in the office. It was a very efficient site office with a friendly atmosphere. The managers promoted this atmosphere in the office.

The overall internship was well run from managers in head office at Laing O'Rourke. There were a couple of days away from site which were put on to meet other interns and network. On site, there was a clear structure to progress and the end of placement reports helped to gain feedback.

Laing O'Rourke have a clear path leading you to chartership starting from the summer internships. They give forms at the start of the placement to fill out while you are there in order to ensure competencies set out by the ICE are experienced. At the end of the placement, they got me to write a report in the style of the chartership reports in order to gain experience of writing them.

The graduate scheme at Laing O'Rourke seems very appealing with a lot of benefits as well as a competitive starting salary. The organised structure in which they lead you towards chartership is also appealing. The nature of site work which potentially means moving around a lot is the only negative but this is more to do with the industry as opposed to the company.

Everyone on the site was friendly and social. We went for drinks a few times over the course of the placement. Although there weren't many other students working ont he same site, the days spent away from site with other students were put on by Laing O'Rourke in a well structured manner.

As I was working next to Canary Wharf, living and socialising in the area was very expensive. This would vary depending on the site.

The nightlife nearby was very good with many bars in the local area. However they were very expensive so you would need to venture further away from Canary Wharf for a cheaper night.

There were drinks put on by the company to celebrate the half way stage of the project. Other than that there weren't any clubs/sport activities put on by the site.