Civil Engineer
Environment Agency
Barbara R
0.00.00 My name is Barbara R. I work for Environment Agency and I’m a Civil Engineer. In particular I am looking at the flood risk management. So if a village in England is flooded we will go there, take where it’s flooding and we will try to improve the situation by building new defences and improving the structures.
0.00.30 My first project here is the little flood bank I did in a village nearby, which is now finished and I’m really proud because it’s first structure which I’ve done here in England and it just make me feel so proud that with the structure protect few people in the village. This is really encouraging and it makes you feel like this is really useful what you are doing. I went to school in Poland and my university as well.
0.01.00 I really enjoyed the social life in school, my friends and all new people meeting every year really. We never had much money so my parents always told that education is the first thing to give to their kids and they did, in a sense they did encourage us to study further, not just finish school but rather get a degree. So they just told this would give me, all of us, a better start in life.
0.01.30 Well I went to university in Poland. And it wasn’t a pure civil engineering, it was more of an environment management with civil engineering. When I finished at university I got a scholarship from European Union to work for one of the company in Europe and I moved to Sicily in Italy and I was living there for one and a half year.
0.02.00 The career wasn’t really progressing as much as I wanted and also because there wasn’t really much flooding issues I decided to just make another move and I just read an advertisement in newspaper about work in Environment Agency in England and that’s how I came here. I suppose one of the incidents which really had an impact on me was big flooding in 97 in Poland
0.02.30 where many cities were flooded which sort of encouraged me to undertake this civil engineering to improve similar situations. I think this incident definitely influenced my career choice. It’s very important to have a good balance of private life and work. Unfortunately most of my friends, this is back in Poland, but I did manage to get some new friends here so we do go out.
0.03.00 I met my husband in England so he likes flying aeroplanes. So that’s we do in our spare time and weekends. I do think about coming back to Poland. I think after a few years spent here I’ll get enough experience to come back and maybe introduce some of your ideas into Poland,
0.03.30 Polish market. I love bridge structures and I would love to build a bridge in my life. Bridges attract me because not only because the structures which are very nice, I just like the look of them, but just the way of connecting to parts of land and connecting people, I think it is something nice about it.
0.03.58
Barbara Rumble is a Civil Engineer with the Environment Agency. She says “I am looking at the flood risk management… I suppose one of the incidents which really had an impact on me was big flooding in ’97 in Poland”. She would like to build bridges because “they connect land and people”.
More information about Civil engineers
The UK average salary is £29,813
There are 37.5 hours in the average working week
The UK workforce is 47% female and 53% male
Future employment
- Undertakes research and advises on soil mechanics, concrete technology, hydraulics, water and waste water treatment processes and other civil engineering matters;
- Determines and specifies construction methods, materials, quality and safety standards and ensures that equipment operation and maintenance comply with design specifications;
- Designs foundations and earthworks;
- Designs structures such as roads, dams, bridges, railways, hydraulic systems, sewerage systems, industrial and other buildings and plans the layout of tunnels, wells and construction shafts;
- Organises and plans projects, arranges work schedules, carries out inspection work and plans maintenance control;
- Organises and establishes control systems to monitor operational efficiency and performance of materials and systems.
