Career choice

[tigerpaul]

My boss has asked me about my future plans. Do I want to become more of an electrical designer / engineer or do I want to go down the project management route?
What further education would I be interested in?

Thinking about these 2 paths I am not sure what the pros and cons are of each and which is more suitable for me.

I'm asking the older and the more experienced guys on this forum what they have done and how it turned out for them.

 

[Engineer54]

Very much depends as to what levels were talking about here??

But to be proficient in Project Management you will need a good grounding in design anyway, to be able to undertake design reviews of submitted contractors drawings... Which by the way, i'm currently plowing through at the moment ...lol!!!

 

[Farmelectrics]

i would of thought going down the design road first would be better as has been said it will lead on to project management good luck your lucky you have a choice

 

[RISElectrical]

For me they go hand in hand to be honest, most small to medium sized company I know, and the same here. The project manager is also the designer, estimator and contracts manager.

 

[Engineer54]

For me they go hand in hand to be honest, most small to medium sized company I know, and the same here. The project manager is also the designer, estimator and contracts manager.

That sounds more like a ''one man band'' than a commercial medium sized contractor... lol!!

 

[RISElectrical]

Haha, how I would love to be just a project manager, its the estimating and the design that I don't want.

Edit: Ok some times the design is taken care of by others, but rarely is the estimating and management

 

[Farmelectrics]

we can all do it on the small jobs its the big jobs were it gets a bit heavy and your designers and engineers are required

 

[RISElectrical]

Everyones definition of small, medium and large differs tho

 

[Farmelectrics]

specially with women lol

 

[RISElectrical]

Haha!!

 

[tigerpaul]

Thanks for the input guys.
I work for a smallish firm, 20 blokes, we do all kinds of building work, only 6 of us do electrical.

The management don't really have anyone electrical minded so it's generally up to a couple of us to sort out the jobs, working out materials and estimating the amount of time and men to complete each project.

Does anyone know of any courses which would be of benefit? The only one which springs to mind is the HNC in Electrical Engineering, but would that help me in the management side of the business? Or is there something else which would be better?

I have to mull over it this weekend before I meet with the company owner next Wednesday..

 

[Farmelectrics]

Have you done city and guilds design course

 

[tigerpaul]

Yes I have done the 2400 course a couple of years ago.

 

[Farmelectrics]

How did you find it tiger I'm awaiting to start mine

 

[RISElectrical]

If you wanted to head down the project manager route then there are courses on contract management etc albeit not a hnc etc. I fell into it as a natural progression from electrician to foreman to junior contracts manager to project manager route. then set up on my own on the tools, then recently due to getting tied of the self employed route went back to contract management.

Ultilmately what do you prefer? To design a job from the ground up or to run a job that's already been designed and costed? Although as I said previously you would probably end up doing a fair bit of estimating and design within a PM role.

If work are willing to pay then a hnc is always a good thing

 

[tigerpaul]

Both design and management appeal to me however with the company I currently work for, management seems to be more likely.

The design of the projects has so far been done by other firms and then we get to tender for them.

That's where they look to me for estimates for time and materials and I get to pick a figure out of the air.

Whether they want to move into designing jobs or not I don't know, but it would be interesting.

Has anyone here done the HNC?

 

[Bobster]

I got up to finishing my HND couldn't afford to stop work to go on to a degree. You have to be pretty good with maths.