Company invite to budding engineers

BUDDING engineers will have the chance to attend an open evening to find out about future careers with a leading St Albans company.

Engineering consultants Faber Maunsell are set to host their second STEP (Structured Training Excellence Programme) open evening, following the success of last year's event.

STEP is a training programme aimed at school leavers, which combines structured tuition with hands-on work experience - and the recruits can earn a salary of up to £13,000 at the same time.

Faber Maunsell took on 60 post-GCSE, AS Level and A-level students onto the scheme last year and are hoping to find between 50 and 100 this year.

Operations director Peter Ayres said: "STEP is a unique and innovative approach to solving the challenges facing the engineering industry, as less and less young people choose to study science and engineering-based subjects.

"We want to show them that the type of work we do is not only interesting and rewarding, but directly impacts on making the world a better place, now and for future generations."

One of last year's recruits was 19-year-old Natalie Tiu (pictured) who joined the St Albans office after completing her A-levels. After a year on the programme she is off to study Architectural Engineering - sponsored by Faber Maunsell.

Natalie said: "STEP was a great opportunity for me to gain a better understanding of the engineering industry. I was assigned to a project to alleviate flooding in the West Ham area of London and it was great to see how a project develops from start to finish. It has given me a really good grounding and I hope to be involved in more prominent projects in the future."

The open evening at the firm's offices in Upper Marlborough Road will take place next Wednesday, March 19, between 6pm and 8pm and is open to interested students and their parents.

For more details about the STEP open evening contact Steve Rodgers on 0208 7845784 or STEP@fabermaunsell.com