The people are really nice, but above all I’m impressed with their continued willingness and investment in young people

Initially joining Identity Consult for a four month placement as part of her ‘Plan BEE’ course, Lauren Blakey is now a fully fledged member of our team – and our newly-appointed Apprentice Project Manager.

In this article, she shares what she’s looking forward to and how she’s grateful to be in a company that is actively supporting her further education. 

“The people here are lovely”

I recently rejoined IC and happy to say I’m settling in really well. I suppose that comes from having already worked here as part of a four month placement that exposed me to projects and people, so now that I’m here full time I can’t wait to see a project through from start to finish.

Laying the foundations

I always knew I wanted to work in construction. I did A-levels in Maths, Art and Physics although I was leaning towards Architecture originally. However I knew I didn’t want to go to University, I wanted to get hands-on experience in the workplace.

Plan BEE was perfect for this. It’s an award-winning, higher level apprenticeship programme that I did in Gateshead. It was the perfect route, exposing me to many different areas of construction from site management, MEP engineering and BIM authoring at six different companies. This gave me the architecture experience I thought I craved, but while the experience was brilliant, I realised it wasn’t the specialism I wanted to follow.

Instead, it was project management that  really resonated with me, and I feel very lucky that I had the opportunity to experience it as I don’t think I would have considered it otherwise.

As well as letting me gain experience across the skillset, my apprenticeship also saw me work real time on projects that I’m now re-visiting in my new role; it’s great to get involved and see how they’ve progressed.

Take for example one of our many NHS and healthcare projects that I’ve recently picked up, as well as a brand new refurb project for the NHS in Ashington. Working for the same client means I already have some knowledge of how to proceed, but everyday is a chance to learn more and that’s what I love.

Supporting my future

IC is a great place to work. The people are really nice, but above all I’m impressed with their continued willingness and investment in young people.

For me personally, they’ve been a huge part of my journey and are supporting me through further education as I undertake a QS degree at Northumbria University – something that will result in me being a chartered QS!

I’d describe myself as organised, self-motivated and resilient. This job means overseeing many different people at varying stages of a project and keeping everything moving, on budget and time managed so they are definitely skills I need!

Outside of work I love music. I play the piano and I’ve been playing the flute in a Youth orchestra since I was nine. Now I’m over 18, I volunteer there and I love it. I live with my mam and my brother although he works on cruise ships so isn’t there often, and my other brother lives in Nottingham.

I like being in the office every day, and I’ll also be doing site visits which are very valuable. It helps to get to know the teams and visualise what you are co-ordinating from the office. Each project brings its own challenges so I hope to get to know all of the people involved so I can efficiently deal with everything.