blog: Working at ITP as a young professional
Monday 20th May 2019
I've worked in transport planning for 2 years and joined ITP's Nottingham office last July, making it roughly 10 months since I started.
I studied Geography at university and that’s where my interest in the sector really began… With a lot of my modules concentrating on the sustainability agenda, and my dissertation focussing on sustainable transport in Sheffield, I knew I wanted to have a career that made a positive impact and I thought transport planning was a great way to create better places that make a real difference to society and the environment.
Project experience so far
One of the reasons I wanted to join ITP was to gain experience in different transport sectors and I can honestly say I've learnt so much since being here. This is something I've truly valued as I've been given opportunities to work on different types of projects, particularly relating to travel plans, community transport, demand-responsive transport, public transport, personal travel planning, data analysis, and bid writing - and that's only in my first 10 months! I'm also part of the company's marketing team by helping produce and share online content, which I find really interesting as it promotes all the great things we do at ITP.
Support and training
Having only been with the company for a couple of months, I was encouraged to book onto the PTRC 20-week Birmingham Lecture Series, which is a training course that provides an introductory overview to a different transport topic each week. It was great to get support to do the training course so soon after starting at the company, and I'm please I did it as it was a useful eye-opener to the field of transport as a whole and I was able to learn about the roles that others play in the sector. I have also received support to develop my GIS skills by using QGIS. I wanted to learn a more technical skill, so through a mixture of online training and help from my colleagues, I feel more confident using it to support projects. Finally, there are weekly webinars that are led by different colleagues each week, which are opportunities to showcase project work or share a particular skill with the rest of the company. This is another example of how we try to maintain communication between all staff and share our knowledge with each other.
It’s great to reflect on all of the support, training, and project work that I’ve received, because it proves that although I’ve been with ITP for less than a year, I feel I’ve already had fantastic opportunities to strengthen my personal development and gain experience in different areas of transport. I know that if there's a particular skill I'm interested in learning about, or a certain area of transport I want to work in, I can raise this with my colleagues who can then put me forward for this type of work in the future. It's great to know that I have that level of support and acknowledgement from my peers as it allows me to choose where I want my career to go, which is really important to me as a young professional.
ITP life outside the office
I learned quickly that ITP is very much a company that will ‘work hard, play hard’. We put our all into the projects that we work on but have a great balance with social events, whether this is crazy-golfing, breaking out from an escape room, eating at different restaurants for the monthly Come Dine With Me meals, walking in the Peak District (in 40mph winds!), taking part in the Nottingham office running club, or checking out some of the local pubs and bars that Nottingham has to offer.
A little bit about me…
Outside of work, I like to keep fit by going to the gym and I aim to go on 2 runs a week. I’m planning to do a couple of running races this year – I want to have something to work towards! I am also a massive ‘foody’ and absolutely love eating out and cooking. I was bought up to try all foods and so I’ve ended up liking pretty much anything and everything. I’ve also been learning Spanish since the start of 2019, as part of a new year’s resolution, and I hope to go away to Spain this year to practice it in real-life situations. Finally, I moved out and bought my first house at the end of last year, and I love decorating it to make it feel like home.
If you’d like to know more about working at ITP, please get in touch, or click here to find out about our current Graduate Consultant vacancy.
