For the latest in our People Powered Profile series, Kevin Over, Head of Power at Astute, sat down with Mike Leigh, Assistant Operations Manager at Lakeside EFW to hear more about his engineering career.
Mike Leigh discusses his career journey into Energy from Waste, how the industry has changed over the years, some of the biggest challenges the Energy from Waste industry is facing at the moment, and also shares his advice for getting into the industry.
Can you tell us a bit about your career journey so far?
My engineering career began in 2005 when I started a mechanical apprenticeship for Hamworthy Combustion Engineering.
I worked there for more than 12 years in various roles and was fortunate enough to travel the world and work in lots of interesting places.
I worked at Thames Water in Strategic Pumping for three years, while there, I worked with some great people and for some great managers who gave me the opportunity to expand on my engineering knowledge with lots of training and support.
I now work in operations for Lakeside Energy from Waste, this has been an entirely different challenge for me as the role involves more people management and involvement in the daily operation of the plant.
There are a lot of smart and talented people here at Lakeside EFW who are helping me to learn and grow into this role.
What are some of the projects/power stations you’ve been involved in?
I worked as a Projects Engineer on the light-up burner upgrade at Drax Power station.
I was working for Hamworthy Combustion at the time, and we had won the contract to upgrade the light-up burners on boilers 1, 2 and 3.
This work was being done as part of the switch from coal to biomass at Drax.
How much has the industry changed during your years within it?
I don’t think the industry has changed much in the time that I have been working in it.
Obviously, the power sources have changed and continue to change in terms of scale.
The biggest change I would say is more on the public perception and awareness of power generation and where the electricity that is powering their homes is coming from.
What are some of the biggest challenges the industry is facing?
I believe the biggest issue facing the industry is the skills shortage, in terms of trades Mechanical, Electrical, C&I etc.
It’s almost cliché at this point to say it, but there are not enough of the skilled people required to maintain these plants on a day-to-day basis or during outages.
I am optimistic that the tide will turn, and it will become attractive enough to draw people back into the trades.
I’m a big advocate for apprenticeships and I hope that industry demand will continue to drive employment of apprentices in trades.
And what are some of the skillsets you’re seeing high demand for in the power sector?
Operators, Shift Technicians, the people that run the plant.
I am talking from the energy from waste point of view.
There are more EFW plants than there are people that have experience operating them and this is problematic for the existing EFW operators and the new plants that are currently being built or starting commissioning.
However, it’s good if you’re an experienced operator in the EFW business as your value is going up daily at the moment.
What do you enjoy most about working in the industry?
The challenges that you are faced with change regularly and the projects that you get involved with are always different.
This keeps the work interesting and helps to enhance your knowledge in areas that you may not have been familiar with before.
My personal experience working for Lakeside has been good and I feel privileged to have been given to opportunity to work here.
What advice would you give your younger self as you embarked upon your engineering career?
Get chartered.
I still would like to get chartered, and I feel it would be the cherry on the cake of my career.
I’m still working on it but I’m sure it would’ve been easier if I had started earlier in my career.
Would you like to join Mike Leigh and be featured in Astute’s next guest on our People Powered profile?
If, like Mike Leigh, you’d like to be featured in Astute’s People Powered Profile series and discuss your engineering career, please contact Kevin Over directly via email or connect with Kevin Over on LinkedIn.
