A Career as a Public Health Engineer

 


As part of our Career in Building Services series, today we meet Ben who is a Public Health Engineer. If you have any questions about this career path, please contact SoPHE YEN at  sophe.yen@gmail.com or you can find your local YEN group at www.cibse.org/yen.

Ben Goodfellow is a Public Health Engineer at WSP and the Chair of SoPHE YEN (Society of Public Health Engineers - Young Engineers Network).

He studied Mechanical Engineering at University and has been in the field of Public Health Engineering for around 6 years working on many prestigious projects both in London and places further afield, including the Middle East.

He is passionate about the built environment and its effects on community and wellbeing as well as promoting STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Maths) subjects and topics.

What is Public Health Engineering?

At its most basic level, Public Health Engineering is a discipline within the building services that focuses on the design of the systems that enable humans to inhabit buildings, such as water, drainage, and fire suppression. It shines a spotlight on the water crisis at home and abroad. Engineers now embrace sustainable attitudes, including a water-saving ethos.

Who can embrace this career?

Anyone! Building Services is fast becoming a career filled with diversity, not only on the great projects you will work on, but the diversity of the people you will work with. Projects are delivered by a team – not just one person, so interpersonal skills are important. From an education perspective, some will have worked on a construction site ‘on the tools’ and taken part-time degree courses, some will be fresh from university, and some will choose to leave school and join an apprenticeship scheme where they will attend day release college and university. Diversity and inclusion are encouraged and many companies offer forums to support colleagues and offer up D&I knowledge and education.

Why is this career key now?

We are all witnessing the change in working style, in part because of COVID-19, but also the generational change. This has a consequence on the primary uses of office space, whereby flexible working and collaboration spaces are the norm. In recent years the government has announced a push on large infrastructure projects, such as HS2, and the ‘Build back better’ campaign all of which lies heavily on the construction sector.

What is SoPHE YEN?

SoPHE YEN (Society of Public Health Engineers - Young Engineers Network) is one of the many CIBSE societies, with the aim of reaching out to young professionals and those aspiring to join the industry by supporting them in their career development, whilst focusing on Public Health Engineering.

Join us on Linkedin! https://www.linkedin.com/groups/8458801/

CIBSE Membership is free for full-time students and heavily discounted for those in part-time education

Join Now

  • Unlimited downloads of guides, research papers and publications from the Knowledge Portal
  • A monthly digital subscription to the CIBSE Journal
  • Access to on-demand learning content including webinars, video presentations and live events. 
  • Be supported in your early career by the CIBSE Young Engineers Network (YEN) 


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