George Mowbray served with the Royal Artillery for 8 years until 2016, and gained a range of skills and experience including Leadership, Decision Making, Communication, Operating under pressure, Empathy and Cultural Awareness.
George found his way to the construction industry through the transition courses and interviews made available to him before leaving, and he attended a number of ex-military recruitment days but he found networking challenging, because he had little industry knowledge and no contacts. However, a BuildForce event at RAF Northolt allowed him to get in direct contact with a number of companies, and lead to an opportunity for an interview with Careys Civil Engineering where he was brought on as a Site Manager and then promoted after a year to Project Manager.
Of his current role. George says: ” I am responsible for the project management of our multiple retail construction contracts… our main clients are Sainsburys and Asda and I will regularly visit sites to review progress, quality, costs, Health and Safety with the site manager, whilst being in communication with the other managers on projects around the country. I may then travel to another site to survey/estimate a potential tender opportunity for a project starting in the coming weeks. Alongside this is the day to day management of our team which includes; HR, Training, Payroll and monitoring Plant and Materials.
George has found many of the skills he learned in the Army are directly transferable to his job, including project management, communication and interpersonal skills, research, planning, decision making & leadership.