What is Civil Engineering?
Civil Engineering is part of the construction industry; it is the design, construction and maintenance of infrastructure. Infrastructure is works like roads, bridges, tunnels, railways, runways and coastal walls.
Civil Engineering is not the construction of houses or commercial buildings such as schools, hospitals, or shopping centres.
Many people in the civil engineering/construction industry have started out as a General Operative before progressing into other roles so it’s a great way to start your career. Working as an Apprentice General Operative you will be getting hands on from day one, being outdoors working on projects on behalf of Kier’s clients. This will involve working on a wide range of civil engineering schemes.
You will be assigned a mentor, an employee at Kier who will be there throughout your training to provide support, to assist in observations, and assist in setting the day to day work.
As well as learning onsite you will have one day a week of classroom training in small groups with other apprentices.
Day to day you will be based on one or more of Kier’s projects throughout your time on the apprenticeship
What will I be doing?
If you enjoy practical work and want a job outdoors, then working on a construction site could be for you. To be a construction operative, you will need a good level of fitness. You will need a basic knowledge of building methods and materials.
At the start of a job, you would help to prepare the site, for example putting up site huts, unloading and storing building materials.
Once the project gets underway, your duties could include:
- Groundworking – marking out and digging shallow trenches for foundations and drains
- Formworking – putting up or dismantling the shuttering that holds setting concrete in place
- Steel fixing – bending and fixing the bars used to reinforce concrete structures
- Steel piling – fixing steel sheets together to form temporary retaining walls for excavation work
- Concreting – layering and smoothing concrete for foundations, floors and beams
- Road working – concreting, laying kerbs, paving and re-surfacing.
You would use various hand, power and machine tools and, with further training, you could operate construction plant equipment, such as dumper trucks or excavators.