Students inspired by ‘Realising Rail’ Careers Event

Realising Rail, organised by the College’s careers service and Uniconnect, focused on the full range of careers across the rail industry and included everything from HR, business, sales, finance, commercial, property management, environmental projects, station management and customer service, as well as the more obvious careers associated with rail in engineering, mechanics, signalling and IT.

A range of apprenticeships, recruitment schemes and degree apprenticeships are currently offered in the rail industry, helping to connect students to York’s rail heritage and the rail industry’s status as a massive employer across the North, especially with significant projects like the Transpennine rail upgrade offering significant opportunities.

Digital Technologies student, Emma Bevan, took part in a project management exercise. She said: “I don’t know what I want to do after College, but having an event like this is so accessible and really helps to broaden my knowledge and open up my options even further. Project Management, for example, is something I may think about in the future.” Other interactive stalls looked at building projects and routes into rail exercises. Hairdressing student Kacey Robinson was especially proud of her straw structure which she built under engineering constraints to take the weight of a chocolate egg!

Freddie Hopkins, Outreach Assistant for Uniconnect said: “Hundreds of students made the most of the opportunity to explore career routes into the rail industry. With subject specific talks and interactive careers stands, manned by a number of rail industry employers, helped students to see the industry from a skills perspectives, as well as understand the work of individual rail employers.”