Benefitting from the variety of our business: Shannon Park shares her journey from utilities to construction.
Interviewer: Harrison Bartlett
Kier is a leading provider of construction and infrastructure services within the UK. This means we operate across a range of sectors, from delivering major projects, maintaining existing infrastructure such as road, rail and water networks as well as building important buildings such as schools and hospitals.
There’s so much opportunity available for our people, here Shannon Park shares with us how she’s moved around the Group – and loved it!
Having joined Kier through an emerging talent route myself (via a level three apprenticeship), I’m always interested to find out more about the other pathways we have to bring people into a role they’re passionate about, whether that’s degree apprenticeships, graduates, or industrial placements. So, when I found out that Shannon is currently on a degree apprenticeship programme to support her move to a different business area, I was keen to find out more about her journey.
“I joined Kier as a commercial assistant in 2017. At the time it was our Utilities division (now known as Natural Resources, Nuclear & Networks business) division,” Shannon said. In her role back then, she worked as part of the commercial team, and was responsible for various administrative tasks such as submitting payment applications to clients, inputting work completion applications and regularly communicating with the quantity surveyors in the team.
After working in this role for two years, Shannon had decided that she was keen to progress in the commercial area and completed her Certificate of Higher Education in Quantity Surveying in 2020, enabling her to begin studying for a bachelor’s degree in this discipline through our degree apprenticeship programme. This supported her in progressing into a quantity surveying role. “I’ve always been ambitious and quite keen to progress. Having worked in a commercial team as an administrator, I was able to see what a quantity surveyor would get up to, and I was keen to do that myself,” Shannon added.
“My course was brilliant, it gave me exposure to various types of construction drawings and areas of work, which helped in rounding off my knowledge and broadening it wider of just utilities, which is the area I was working in at the time,” Shannon continued. The degree itself is transferable between different sectors, as similar principles of the role apply everywhere, and you can work as a quantity surveyor in every business stream we have at Kier, something that Shannon has now benefitted from too.
Due to contractual changes in 2022, Shannon’s colleagues were set to move to another business, however, Shannon didn’t want to leave Kier. “In my local office, there was another commercial team that sat on a different floor to me, and that was within our Construction business. I had asked the commercial manager there if they had any roles for me, as I didn’t want to leave Kier,” Shannon said. She was soon interviewed for an assistant quantity surveyor role, which she now holds.
“Kier being the size that it is, and operating in the sectors that it does, has been really beneficial to me in my change in roles, and I’m sure that’s been the case for others in the business,” Shannon continued. “Whilst the business area I used to work in, and the one I now currently work in, are incredibly different, the principles of the job are still very much the same, or at least very similar,” Shannon added. As an assistant quantity surveyor, she supports the team by communicating with subcontractors and sourcing them for a project. Not only this, but she has been working towards completing her degree, and officially graduates this coming November 2024.
“I’ve now finished all of my university work and graduate later this year, with a first class honours degree! My time on the course was brilliant, and it exposed me to learning so many new things that I’ve been able to apply to my role,” Shannon said. Not only has the degree apprenticeship programme supported Shannon in learning her role but working as part of a larger team of around 10 people, and being able to call on others for advice and support has been invaluable.
“As an employer, Kier has been amazing in my time here. They have supported me in so many ways, from putting me onto the degree apprenticeship, to helping me move into a different area of the business so I could stay here and continue learning,” Shannon added.
It was fantastic to meet with Shannon, and to hear about her journey so far. It’s a story which goes to show you can always learn new things to develop your career here, whether that’s in your business area or in another part of the business.
The construction industry is filled with exciting opportunities, and this March you’ll have the opportunity to take a peek behind the hoardings at an Open Doors event. It’s a brilliant opportunity to learn more about how our sites operate and give you a taste for what a career in construction could look like for you. Make sure you get involved, and if you like what you see, check out our current vacancies or sign up to our talent communities so you’ll always be on our radar.
