Having family members in the fire service, as a young child, she was inspired to help people, just like her dad and his father.

Following school, Zuzanna applied for a BSc in Fire and Rescue.

She moved ~200 miles away from home by herself; however had a strong determination to complete the degree, and achieved First Class Honours.

Whilst Zuzanna was working full-time in an unrelated industry, she began a part-time self-funded MSc in Fire Safety Engineering at the University of Central Lancashire. During a lecture, Zuzanna learnt about Hydrock and applied to be a Graduate Fire Engineer.

Her role involves large-scale and complex projects from the early design stages, throughout the building’s lifecycle. Fire Safety is a crucial topic; Zuzanna’s position is about balancing the competing aims of design innovation, sustainability, functionality and fire safety.

During her first weeks at Hydrock, Zuzanna was asked to shadow during a highly-technical client meeting. Therefore, she impressed the information, produced detailed technical notes and asked whether she could lead the meeting.

Truly going above and beyond – this was not expected from someone who just started a whole new career; however, seeing how Zuzanna has progressed it was not a surprise.

Whilst Zuzanna understands she still has a lot to learn, when challenges arise, she always steps forward. Upon receiving feedback, she prioritises learning outcomes, and she is constantly improving by: learning from mistakes; doing further research and self-upskilling.

All projects in which she is involved are better than the previous.

Zuzanna’s MSc dissertation – “The Effectiveness of Concealed Sprinkler Head Properties”, was highly-technical work. The experiment was carried out with Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service, and the ideas presented within her thesis have been of benefit to Hydrock, and impacted the commercial value of our team.

Having an in-house expert has been a great strength. Zuzanna is frequently involved with various STEM activities; most recently at South Birmingham College she spoke to students regarding careers in the built environment, and about her role as a Fire Engineer.

Her inspirational words were met with positive feedback from the lecturers and students.

Aside from working full time at Hydrock, Zuzanna also volunteers with West Midlands Fire Service. She notes: ”this makes me incredibly proud due to the fact that I can contribute to my community.”

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Emily enrolled on RLB’s Future-Professional programme following the completion of her degree. She is working towards Chartership (RICS) and is based within a team providing specialist advice around fire safety.

During 2022, Emily was selected by the Yorkshire Managing Partner to attend a Global Conference, she was 1 of 4 graduates from the UK business. The conference exposed Emily to Senior National and International colleagues who came together to share knowledge and experiences, harness new insights and foster better connections across the globe. This has allowed Emily to develop ideas and draw upon her knowledge to aid project delivery in her day-to-day role. Emily has been working on integrating services into task delivery of her team, taking a focus on sustainability elements looking to improve KPIs, carbon neutral targets and efficiencies with our clients. This has been developed alongside RLBs head of Sustainability Consultancy.

Emily ensures her day-to-day activities as a Building Surveyor remain aligned with RLBs values Customer, People, Profit and Service. Emily has worked with her team to increase service efficiency and quality through the implementation of key stages and providing templates for project services.

Following the Future Professionals Day (graduate networking/conference), group tasks were allocated, a presentation was delivered based on improving an area of RLB’s values. Along with 6 colleagues, Emily led on producing an initiative ‘improving inter-office relations though RLB services’ which focuses on a 3-pronged approach providing a short, medium and long-term plan (see attachment).

Emily leads the Bucknall’s First Rung (BFR) initiative for Yorkshire working alongside Graduates to encourage young people into the construction industry. The programme provides career support preparing young people for the working world.

Emily has developed a career’s programme now in its second year of delivery at a Derbyshire school led through the BFR Initiative. This has been developed alongside the school careers lead to address the curriculum requirements. Following its success this is to be rolled out to other schools across the UK and Ireland. Emily is also responsible for participating in STEM and RICS Inspire Ambassador events.

Testimonial – Adam Wood, Emily’s line manager

From joining RLB, Emily has been a standout graduate, and is identified as a ‘Future-Leader’ of the business. A key strength of Emily is the passion she has for giving back to the community and inspiring the next generation. She carries a great deal of passion in any activity which she is involved in.

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Emily Lipscombe.pptx

Siobhan joined Brookbanks in 2021 and was our first University Graduate entered under the ‘Brookbanks Management Graduate Scheme’.

In her time at Brookbanks, Siobhan has excelled at every task she has approach, bringing a professional and ethical outlook which appears to never falter.

Her key achievements for the business are as follows:

– Coordination of the companies Research & Development annual assessment process, requiring engagement with 15 Associate Directors and Technical Directors.

– Leader of the companies Social Media Working Group. Siobhan creates & schedules posts and leads several other Graduates in the ongoing production of all social media content. In her time in this role Siobhan has managed to achieve a significant increase in followers to our social media platforms (over 200%).

– Through extensive and focused training, Siobhan is fast becoming a nutrient neutrality champion and has helped to secure hundreds of homes all around the country being delivered through evidence that their nutrient impact can be mitigated through a number of innovative techniques (fallowing, credit offsetting etc).

– For the last two years Siobhan has created, written and published the company Christmas newsletter which is sent to all clients. The newsletter comprises several stories, project successes and industry news for that year, requiring Siobhan to engage with the business owners and key group Directors in order to compile the information.

– Siobhan is also a self-made Social Champion of the business by, off her own steam, organising staff social events such as bowling, meals, hill hikes etc. Her desire to see the teams come together and socialise is emormously admirable and it is clear she understands the importance of team building and general morale.

Courtney Littlechild joined Goram Homes as a Development Assistant in October 2022, based in Bristol. Goram Homes is Bristol City Council’s housing delivery company and builds high quality homes on council-owned land. Courtney has completed her Architecture degree from the University of Portsmouth and the first part of her Masters in Architecture before joining Goram Homes.

Courtney has been an energetic addition to the Goram Homes team, demonstrating a can-do attitude throughout her time with us, showcasing clear passion for good quality design and for tackling the housing crisis.

She’s been empathetic and communicative with various stakeholders. Our core values reflect who we are and who we want to be and are that “we make a positive social impact”, “build partnerships with purpose” and “innovate to succeed” and Courtney has embodied these from day one, by not only being an exemplar team player, assisting her colleagues through busy periods but also through her recent work on our latest design competition.

Courtney has been leading on launching our Novers Hill design competition for a disused brownfield site. Not only did she engage with members of the community, the ward councillors, the van dweller coordinator (as people currently use the site for temporary accommodation) and residents of the area, she also wrote the brief for the competition and delivered a webinar for entrants. She has done this with an empathetic and professional attitude, being sensitive to the long-standing history of people opposing any development on the site and aiming to protect an ecologically important area adjacent to it.

Courtney has also constantly worked to improve herself and skills throughout her time with Goram Homes, through attending both first-aid and health and safety (managing safely) courses as well as asking for feedback on her performance and continuously improving herself.

Courtney has fitted in seamlessly with our Goram Homes team, proving herself every day as a reliable colleague and team member. She embodies our core values and brings a confident, positive, eager-to learn attitude and passion when it comes to delivering much needed affordable homes for the 18,000 people on the housing waiting list. She’s also shown real interest in social value being delivered for communities as part of our developments.

Tari has been an absolute pleasure to have working at Mott MacDonald, he has been pro-active, creative, and dedicated to his role.

Having joined as a Graduate Engineer Tari has quickly become well known in the team and the business.

He has worked across some incredibly important civil and infrastructure projects, across a number of different sectors showing his versatility – from building, transportation and flood alleviation, and has really developed a real expertise in the flood alleviation sector with flood risk mitigation, drainage design and SuDs.

 Always trying to do more he became a Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Champion at Mott MacDonald – working alongside the Advance Employee EDI Steering Committee to provide and opportunity for employees at Mott MacDonald ot play an active role in developing an inclusive culture in the company.

He has also become a Fairness Inclusion and Respect Champion at the Institute of Civil Engineers (ICE).

Tari is a natural leader, and I see him being a true star of the future.

I look forward to seeing him grow and if his trajectory continues he could go on to do big things.

Sanha Iqbal was hired as a Graduate within C80 Group’s building compliance division C80 Solutions in February 2022 to fulfil the role of Trainee Building Physics Engineer. In just one year she has achieved great things with us, brought plenty of value to the business and established herself a key member of the team. 

After completing her degree in Architectural Engineering at Leeds University, Sanha was looking for a career in construction. Having held the position of Sustainability Advisor for the Leeds University Students Union whilst completing her degree, she had a genuine passion and interest focused around the sustainability of buildings.

In her role as Graduate Trainee Building Physics Engineer, Sanha successfully completed the ABBE Non-Domestic Energy Assessor qualification. Following this, she expressed a keen interest in BREEAM, a method for assessing the environmental impact of construction projects. She showed great willingness to learn and soon passed the required tests to successfully become a licensed BREEAM Assessor. She is now fully qualified to deliver both BREEAM and SBEM assessments for our clients, helping them to reach their sustainability-related goals.

Sanha’s commitment to her role and further learning meant that not only has she gained multiple industry recognised qualifications, but she has also been able to work directly on live projects within a much shorter timeframe than is usual for a graduate. To date, she has been involved early enough in multiple projects to have had a direct and positive influence on them, with many clients commending Sanha’s involvement.

Gaining the required qualifications, experience and understanding required to fulfil her role has allowed Sanha to drop the “Trainee” from her job title but she has made it very clear she isn’t finished yet and is actively looking for further training and self-development opportunities that will allow her to get involved in the other services offered by our company.

As a member of the C80 Team, Sanha is helpful, positive and a real role model for other graduates entering the business. Outside of her main role as a Trainee Building Physics Engineer, she is happy to contribute her ideas to the Marketing Team and support with social media content.

C80 Group is proud to have a team member like Sanha onboard. We actively try to recruit from backgrounds that are underrepresented in our industry and Sanha is testament to the fact that this deeply enriches the work we do.