Supporting young people has always been important to Mackley. This year, we wanted to build on our offering in response to Government guidelines around preparing young people for work and closing the gap between education and employment. In all, 23 days of activities for 13 students over four weeks were coordinated by the team. They worked with departments and sites across the business to tailor each person’s work experience to incorporate real-life encounters. Additional specific careers advice was provided and skills-workshops took place along with department-specific activities and opportunities to reflect and use the learning they obtained during their time with us.

Work experience only works when everyone pulls together to make it happen and it is testament to Mackley’s amazing team that several very complicated weeks have gone smoothly. Seven students were based at our head office where, armed with detailed workbooks they started their week with an introduction to Mackley from our Managing Director, Ben Hamer. They then spent time learning about design with the Technical Services team, management and maintenance of our fleet with our Plant team, purchasing with the Procurement team, managing budgets with the Commercial team, writing risk assessments with one of our Health and Safety Officers, bid-writing and estimating with the Pre-Contract team, learning about environment and ecology with Technical Services and careers skills with HR.  

The students also visited Wild Park, where they toured the site and met everyone involved; Madeira Terrace Restoration, where they had the chance to spend time with Project Manager and Engineers and Havant Thicket Reservoir where they met the Comms and HR team. They were also taken on a walking tour of our previous Shoreham and Adur Tidal Walls project so that they could spot the flood defences on a completed project.

Outside of the standard work experience week, we also launched a brand new ‘multiple employer’ project-based opportunity for students from BHASVIC, a Brighton college. Over the course of a week, six 17 year olds were set a challenge to survey the Madeira Terrace site, then come back to present findings. Students were given research suggestions and supported when meeting employers and engineers involved in the project: Brighton and Hove Council, the client; Purcell, the architects; CIWS, the cast iron experts; Atkins Realis, the project managers; Landscape Projects, the landscape architects; one of our Technical Services engineers and two of our site engineers.  

This project was challenging, but very rewarding and the Sussex Careers Hub plan to use it as an example of how companies can work together to provide ‘multiple employer’ work experience opportunities that give young people a sense of how different types of companies work together on bigger projects. Not all schools can support work experience weeks, so, to ensure that every young person was given an opportunity to find out more about engineering as a future career option, our Public Engagement Officer delivered interactive workshops to students from three different schools on the challenges presented by a heritage restoration project such as Madeira Terrace. She also, with the help of several of our younger Mackley employees attended four Futures Fairs, providing opportunities for students to talk about the role of engineering whilst engaging with our bespoke Mackley wave tank!

Thank you so much to everyone who was involved in putting this all together. Gone are the days when work experience students get put in an office to do some filing! It’s so important that they get valuable, hands-on experience that will stay in their memories and hopefully leave a lasting impression. It’s great that we can give them that.

I really enjoyed the visit to the reservoir and getting an insight of the working environment
of an engineering company. It helped me see the importance of balancing many different
projects and time management. I also saw how having a good relationship with the team
leads to more productivity and better work. I was always thinking of doing engineering and
this experience has definitely locked in my decision.” WEX student

We are thrilled to announce that our team has successfully achieved the Cyber Essentials certification.

This accomplishment reflects our commitment to safeguarding our systems and data against cyber security threats.

Thanks to our IT team’s hard work and efficient collaboration, we now have a stronger, more secure digital environment that reinforces the trust of our clients and partners.

This is a vital milestone as we continue to prioritise cyber security and resilience in our operations.

Mettie van den Berg, Infosec Compliance Manager, Van Oord