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My name’s Paul. I work for Flannery Plant Hire.

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They’re a UK-wide operation. I’m based out of Birmingham, in Curdworth.

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And today we’re coming from our head office in West London.

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Flannery rents out machines to the construction industry

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and you’ll see them as large diggers, excavators, bulldozers.

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We’ve got a whole fleet of machines throughout the UK.

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My role here, as digital plant manager, is to manage a UK

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team of engineers who go out and fix and install products

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on Flannery machines at customer sites.

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From the early 2000s there’s been an adoption of products that enhance machines

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and that consists of telematics, GPS systems,

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total stations and remote support.

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Telematics allows us to log into each machine

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at any point during the day and it’s a remote control system.

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School for me – I concentrated on what I was good at to be honest with you.

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Mathematics was not a strong area for me, but I was great at art.

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I felt that doing things that I enjoyed

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allowed me to be, I suppose, more confident in them areas.

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I then went to sixth form.

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I’d done well on my GCSEs and I done again subjects that

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I enjoyed for two years, which is art, history and media.

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And then after that I got an apprenticeship.

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I started as an apprentice technician

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and that was servicing equipment.

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I didn’t really know what it was at that time, to be honest with you,

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but I just knew that it was something that I wanted to do

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and it was an apprenticeship which no one really knew anything about.

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I liked it because they were putting me back through City and Guilds on a day break.

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So I got to learn as well.

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So while I had four days of work, the Wednesday of

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every week I was sent off to college to learn electronics.

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I finished my apprenticeship with Sekeya

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and then I joined a company which was called Survey Supplies.

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I joined a business that was called Quarec, joined as a service technician.

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I joined a company called VP PLC as a specialist engineer,

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and then I joined a company called Bolles, who are a Dutch company – family-run

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business again, similar to Flannery’s. I was there for six and a half years.

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Ended up as a director, starting off from a technical support engineer.

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So I didn’t realise it until I actually started work that I’d learned

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quite a lot in terms of at the time, in geography, in terms of mapping,

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understanding where places are, how to scale and understand

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how to do a grid – which are all applicable in my job today.

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When we’re looking to recruit, we’re looking for great attitude,

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I think, because you can train people

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with a great attitude, people that are willing to listen and learn.

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The advice I would give you is

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don’t let a piece of paper with results written on it

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judge you or define you

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and once you win that job, give it your all.