Career Profiles in Science and Engineering

GSE Careers Profiles

About this leafletThere is no ‘typical’ career path for a scientist or engineer in the Civil ServiceHow you choose to develop your own career is up to you, depending on your own personal career goals, your area of expertise, and what motivates you.

This leaflet is designed to help you think about where a career in the Civil Service could take you and explore the wide range of opportunities for people with a science or engineering background to display and develop their expertise and experience, and build their careers.

It is also worth looking at the GSE “Planning your career” guide, which contains advice drawn from the wider selection of interviews we conducted as part of our review. This aims to provide guidance on the kind of behaviours and thinking that should help you develop your career.

Introduction to roles for scientists and engineers in the Civil ServiceThere are around 12,000 scientists and engineers in government carrying out a huge range of occupations, from radiation health and safety to brain electrophysiology, cloud physics, or agricultural processing.

Scientists and engineers play a wide range of roles in government, whether in the monitoring and regulatory environment, operations and service provision or policy spheres. Science and engineering roles in government may demand depth of knowledge and expertise in particular disciplines or sectors as well as an ability to engage across a wide range of disciplines. Your preferences in this area can help guide your career choices:

• the Practitioner, who provides specialist advice or services and is likely to become or remain a deep expert in their field;

• the Integrator, who manages science or engineering programmes or works closely with researchers, and whose expertise depends on understanding both policy or operations and the wider landscape of science and engineering expertise and knowing how to engage with both; and

• the Informed Advocate, who works in policy or operations and retains a lively and informed interest in science or engineering.

Introduction to the career profilesThe following six profiles represent a selection of the possible professional functions and identities that constitute the science and engineering community in the civil service. They demonstrate both the wide range of jobs open to someone entering the civil service with a science or engineering background and the diversity of career paths that can be followed in reaching senior positions.

The short profiles aim to provide an insight into the motivations and key decisions of successful senior civil servants. The career timelines illustrate how they got to where they are today and the kind of experiences and training helped them achieve this.

Katherine RiggsDepartment for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Katherine joined the civil service after a degree in environmental science and a PhD in soil chemistry. She initially joined Defra as a soil chemist to manage the R&D programme on soils. This made use of the knowledge she had gained during her degree and PhD. After becoming interested in the translation of science into policy, she applied for the policy fast stream – as an external candidate. Having achieved it herself, she now encourages scientists to try to make the move across to policy. She acts as a mentor to support scientists trying to achieve this and sits on the fast stream panel.

Since coming in through the fast stream she’s had a range of posts which have used her scientific background to varying extents, including on animal health and welfare and food policy which made use of her scientific knowledge, as well as in corporate roles and EU negotiations. She worked on the Foresight report on food security. As part of that she had to read large volumes of technical material and advise how to best communicate it - an experience she considers her scientific background to have been particularly useful for.

Although she now works predominantly in policy making roles, she feels that science has underpinned her career.

Katherine Rigg’s Career Timeline

Environmental Science Degree

Soil Chemistry PhD

Soil Chemist, Defra

Fast stream (external)

Science Policy Team

Food Security Foresight Report, GO-Science

Defra

= Learning,

development and

training opportunity

Clive Tarver: Director ISTARMinistry of Defence

Clive is currently Director ISTAR in the Ministry of Defence’s procurement organisation, Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S). Following an Engineering Degree from the University of Cambridge, Clive joined the MoD through their Science and Engineering Fast Stream and has remained with the department since.

The appeal of engineering is what originally took him to the MoD. Although he hasn’t done much pure engineering since leaving the fast stream it has affected his career choices and Clive has continued to seek out engineering related roles. He has worked in the Ships Support Agency, Special Communications Integrated Project Team and a selection of posts to broaden his experience. These included Head of the MoD External Relations Unit in Whitehall, Private Secretary to Chief of Defence Procurement and Support Director in the Defence Procurement Agency. He’s been part of the senior civil service since 2007 and moved into his current post in 2011.

He tries to maintain professional links through IMechE and IET, and would describe engineering as his career anchor and as a key part of his identity –although he would now identify portfolio, programme and project management as his primary area of expertise. The main motivators behind his career have been job satisfaction and retaining a healthy work/life balance. The nature of the work he’s sought out has ensured that his work has remained interesting.

Clive personally feels that there has been loads of fabulous support available for his career development. This began with the fast stream, and included science and engineering related experience provided by the MoD, such as courses at Cranfield and Shrivenham. The MoD also sponsored him to take an MBA at Warwick Business School. More recently, he’s benefited from a Band B development scheme, and found the executive coach this provided to be particularly valuable.

Clive Tarver’s Career Timeline

= Learning,

development and


Engineering Degree, Cambridge

Science and Engineering Fast Steam

Band B2 – Business Manager (Ships Support Agency)

Secondment - Script Writer (Balkans Secretariat)

Team Leader (Special Communications Project Team)

MBA – Warwick Business School

Head of MoD External Relations Unit

Private Secretary to Chief of Defence Procurement

Support Director (Defence Procurement Agency)

IPT Leader Marine Electrical Systems

Director Corporate Information

Director Infrastructure

Head of Air C2 Programme Delivery Group

1992

2000

2002

Devonport Naval Base

Special Projects Procurement

2004

2007

Director ISTAR

2008

2009

2011

Band B Development Scheme

Roles taken to

broaden

experience

Executive coach

was particularly

valuable

Kären ClaytonHealth and Safety Executive

Kären joined the civil service as an Assistant Scientific Officer in the MoD. She subsequently gained experience working in industry with BAe before moving to HSE, who recruited her for her knowledge of explosives. She is a chartered chemist and also a mentor for both GSE and HSE. She studied part time after starting at the MoD, and continued doing so for several years.

The jobs that Kären has taken have been driven by a desire to take risks and pursue change. She has been eager to avoid doing the obvious or taking jobs where there is an entrenched way of doing things. She hasn’t carefully planned her career, and has taken jobs opportunistically. Science has played a role in her career by opening up opportunities that may not otherwise have been available.

Her role as a production manager at BAe, and the business management course she did while in that post, helped to take on a variety of more diverse roles at HSE. In her current role she is a policy maker and a programme manager, supporting the director. Previously she has worked as the Head of Process safety, as Head of HSE’s Biological Agents Unit, where she worked on issues such as foot and mouth outbreaks; she has also worked on a review of the HSE communications approach.

Kären believes that there were several key decisions she made for her career. The first of these was the decision to continue studying while working. The second was the decision to go back to work quickly after having her son. She felt that had she not done this she would not have been able to return on a promotion. Finally, she considers the decisions to take on roles outside her discipline at HSE, often where things needed sorting out, to be key points in her career; the key training and development opportunities she had assisted this transition

Kären Clayton’s Career Timeline

Assistant Scientific Officer, MoD

Part Time Study

Production Manager, BAe

Business Management Course

HSE Explosives Inspector

Contract Manager for HSE Incident Contact Centre

Senior Professional Administrative Training Scheme

Project Manager HSE Communications Review

Head of Process Safety, HSE

Head of Biological Agents Unit, HSE

Preparing for Top Management Programme

Director Corporate Specialists Division, HSE

= Learning,

development and


Director Long Latency Health Risks Divisions

Stephen NicklinDefence Science and Technology Laboratory

Steve is presently a senior fellow at DSTL and CONTEST advisor on Explosives Detection and Diagnostics. He studied Cellular Pathology at university, and a PhD in immunology at Bristol. In addition to authoring and reviewing numerous internal reports Steve has also published widely in peer reviewed scientific journals. He has edited 2 books on immunology and holds a number of patents relating to detection and degradation of explosives.

Early in his career he was expected to do and deliver science due to his science background, but found that within a large organisation there are numerous opportunities. Within Dstl if you have the ability, inclination and take the training, moving into management or supporting roles is no problem.Steve feels that moving back into science from management is more of a problem if you do not maintain your currency in science – so it’s important you decide what you want to do. He believes it is up to the individual to work around any barriers in their way, and retrain if necessary – change is always good.

Currently specialising in detection and diagnostics, he continues to work closely with academia, industry and international partners, developing and advising on science and technology to support UK forces. The most important driving force behind his career decisions has been the desire to never be bored and to never turn his back on an opportunity. He said a pivotal moment for him was when he successfully applied for a position in Dstl on a whim after he became bored with his job at the time after being there for several years.

He has a love for doing science, and messing about with ideas, and needed to be working in a laboratory setting to enable this. However, as his career developed, he moved towards more management oriented roles where he was responsible for leading and developing a group of 40. At this point he guided his projects, which were done by members of his group or in academia and industry. He was then encouraged to apply for the Dstl fellowship scheme – which provides a non-managerial, technically focussed, route to senior and influential positions within the organisation – in recognition of his contribution to science, staff development and collaboration. It’s not possible to be both a fellow and a group leader, and Steve chose to follow the fellowship route.

Steve Nicklin’s Career Timeline

= Learning,

development and


BSc Cellular Pathology

PhD Immunology, Bristol

Head of Immunology and Immunotoxicology Department,

Team Leader, Biological Detection –Explosives Detection Group, DERA

Section Head of Biological Detection

Bid and Assignment Manager for ED Applied Research Programme

Technical Consultant

Technical Manager (Capability)

DERA Fellowship

Senior Fellowship

Senior Fellowship status reconfirmed

Capability advisor to CTS & TC

Technical Advisor to Centre for Defence Enterprise

1978

1991

1994

Postdoc at Wellcome Research Lab

Immunology Department, BIBRA

2001

2004

2006 -

2009 -

Group Leader for Explosives

1975

1978

1981

1987

2006

1998

1998

1997

1995

Provided input to Bioremediation 1999

Zoë DayanDepartment for Business, Innovation and Skills

Zoë joined the Civil Service directly at Grade 7 after extensive experience in industry. She began her career as a control and electrical engineerspecialising in chemical manufacturing processes. She spent 10 years working at ICI and AstraZeneca, where she was involved in plant design, installation and maintenance and then operations and supply chain management.

The decision to join the civil service was a pivotal move for her career. She made it because she wanted a change from the operational management environment. She was attracted by an advert from the Department for Trade and Industry because it suggested that her background in the chemicals industry was desirable. Zoë had no ‘5 year plan’ for her career, although did make the choice to move away from being a practitioner, at least for a while.

While she would consider her current area of expertise to be policy delivery, Zoë has found her specific engineering background to be useful in roles in the materials and metals sector team, research sustainability and carbon emissions trading policies. The general business understanding and analytical skills she developed through her engineering training and experience have also been useful throughout her civil service career. She believes that the engineering mindset is valuable and can sometimes give her a different approach from her colleagues.

Zoë Dayan’s Career Timeline

Sponsorship by ICI.

University course

ICI – Engineering (5 years)Gained Chartered Engineering status

AstraZeneca – Operations Management(2 years)

DTI - Direct Entry G7, Strategy

DTI – Materials and Engineering Sectors

DTI /BERR - research sustainability

BIS – Better Regulation Executive

= Learning,

development and

training opportunityYear teaching English to Czech Engineers

Laurence Bryant: Director WeaponsMinistry of Defence

Laurence is currently the 2* Director of the Weapons Operating Centre within the Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S) organisation in the MOD. As the Director, he heads a team of 1784 personnel who procure, deliver and support weapons to the British Armed Forces. In addition he is the Head of Profession for Weapons, Ordnance, Munitions and Explosives, a chartered engineer and a certified project manager.

Laurence joined the MoD as an apprentice at the age of 16, attracted to engineering by the combination of a good, solid job in the civil service and his enjoyment for the practical side of engineering. With the exception of a two year secondment to industry he has stayed with the department since. He remains proud of his engineering background and continues to find it useful in his current role.

Particularly since his early 30s, he has sought a move from quality control in to programme and project management. He hoped this would allow him to develop wider skills and have a larger remit – something he considers to be more challenging and rewarding. He took a Naval Ordnance course at Shrivenham before moving to Scotland where he worked in weapons testing with torpedoes. He then pursued an MSc in guided weapons, again at Shrivenham, before securing a project management role with Sea Wolf.

He considers this MSc to be a pivotal moment in his career as it anchored him to working in weapons and directly led him to Sea Wolf, where he was for the next 8 years with the exception of his secondment. Since then he has worked in a number of roles, including deputy team leader of the Ground Based Air Defence programme and then UK Military Flying Training and Simulation Team Leader, before becoming Deputy to Director Combat Air and moving into his current role in 2012.

Laurence Bryant’s Career Timeline

Apprentice

Quality Control Role

Naval Ordnance Course (Shrivenham)

Weapons Testing (Scotland)

MSc Guided Weapons (Shrivenham)

Project Management (Sea Wolf + others)

Secondment

Deputy Team Leader

Team Leader (FsAST)

Team Leader (UKMFTS)

Deputy to Director Combat Air

Gateway Team Leader

Director Weapons

1996

2000

2002

2004

2006

2009

2012

= Learning,

development and


MSc was pivotal,

anchoring Laurence

to weapons