ICE recognises the fact that the UK economy is experiencing difficult financial times at the moment with limited opportunity for employment of civil engineering graduates.
As part of the strategy to offer assistance in this regard, the ICE has looked at the current situation in the UK and has provided some information we feel may help you.
Graduate Engineering Jobs
Whether you want to help prepare London for the 2012 Olympics, tackle waste management problems or help contribute to a new sustainable environment for the next generation, civil engineering can provide a successful career for you.
The Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) Salary Survey 2010 showed that:
- The basic starting salary among those new graduates who left university in 2009 was £23,500
- On average the total income for under 25's was £24,841 and for those aged 25-29 it stood at £29,064
So how do you find a job with the civil engineering industry? The ICE has provided a number of extremely useful graduate specific job sites and job search tips below to help you.
It’s a good idea to find out which employers annually recruit for graduate schemes. Your university or college tutor and careers service should be able to provide you with the details.
Work Placements
There are many types of work placements you can undertake, from a few days up to a year. Work placements will give you a great insight into what engineering companies do on a day to day basis and allow you to accumulate vital experience in industry.
A work placement will also give you a better chance of standing out when applying for jobs as you will be able to demonstrate necessary experience to prospective employers when you land that all important interview.
Finding a work placement is not always easy, so to help the ICE has provided a number of external sources we feel will help you in your work placement search.
If you are a graduate, who graduated in 2008, 2009 or 2010 with at least a degree or foundation degree one way of finding a work placement or internship opportunity is through the Graduate Talent Pool.
Graduate Prospects provides an extensive amount of information on graduate careers which covers work placements.
A useful site that provides work placement opportunities across the United Kingdom.
ICE Approved Employers
Whilst the ICE cannot guarantee that these companies will have the opportunities for graduates in these difficult times, they do represent the bulk of the employers of Civil Engineering Graduates, both within the UK and globally. As such, their websites could be regarded as a valuable resource and a starting point when seeking information in relation to the background to a company, any particular engineering specialism's a company may operate and provide details of specific projects the company will have been working on.
To find out about the current ICE approved employers use our Approved Employer search tool
Google Graduate Job Search Tip
If you have found it difficult and time consuming searching each engineering companies website for graduate openings you can use Google to speed up your search.
To search for jobs in your local area and at a specific company you can use the simple search request below within the google search engine:
City, Country 'key word search' company name
For example if I wanted to search graduate engineering jobs at Skanska in London, my basic search would be:
London, UK 'Graduate Engineering Jobs' Skanska.
The end result will be a Google search listing, returning all the current jobs from that company that meets your key word search criteria.
More Information
We hope the above has been helpful, if you require any further assistance you may want to contact the ICE Regional Support Team who may be able to provide further assist.