Job Satisfaction at Arup

I work in the planning team and enjoy most of the work I do, particularly the more technical side of it and wastewater modelling. I less enjoy the reports that come after but that is part of the job that cannot be avoided, particularly for a graduate.

Hydraulic modelling with TUFLOW. Analysing data and flood model results. Data management and automation.

- Usually long hours. Sometimes, I've had to work on weekends to meet deadlines

Design Drawings, Calculations, Client Meeting, Tender Documentation

Responsibly for managing myself and my tasks, seeking advice and help, and at times reaching out to others for more work. General committee involvement in internal committees. I work on transport planning projects for local and international clients.

Delivering projects

The office hours are 8am-5pm, I typically arrive between 8am-9am so that by 9am I am already working and ready to take any calls. During the day I will typically have 2-3 meetings, most of these are with team members such as project managers, technical leads and other graduates, but a few times a week these involve clients too. Most of my day outside of meetings is spent doing project work, with there occasionally being training for the graduate program and extracurricular activities offered by Arup. At around 12.30pm I will take lunch for an hour,

Assist the team with project work or house-keeping tasks. Follow instructions, but yet ask questions about how tasks are performed to challenge status quo.

Working in requirements engineering on a large project. The field is unfamiliar to me and can be overwhelming to learn but the majority of tasks are straightforward and even boring or tedious depending on the duration. Day to day responsibilities include checking and replying to emails and teams messages, updating spreadsheets, chasing up people doing tasks, reaching out to get more work or make new connections, updating others on my progress, participating in office committees.

Engineering design, co-ordination, follow up on tasks, delegation, feedback / input to designs, project management (low scale)

Graduate Transport Planner ; varies day to day

Usually, I'll be working on one primary project and will send a teams message to the person I'm working with. This will either be to tell them what I'm planning to work on that day or asking what they need me to help out on. This may be followed by a call going through what tasks they would like me to complete or some messages listing out the tasks. My main responsibilities include working through the tasks I have assigned and being proactive in asking for help if I'm unsure.

Finance and economics consulting

For the first 6 months I obviously didnt do anything great - I was making power points and researching topics and doing graduate modules. But after 6 months I was writing full reports on logistic studies, being an assistant PM on a major infrastructure strategy and helping research alternative fuel types for the marine sector

What I do day to day depends on the project and stage of project I am working on. I have been involved in completing geotechnical desktop studies, (compiling geotechnical information for a site and detailing potential risks), site work (logging boreholes and collecting samples), processing geotechnical data, writing geotechnical reports, organizing subcontractors, creating automation tools, running meetings.