>>1483748Apprenticeship scheme will lead down a path of manual labour and weekends & nights. Ask to be put through a Civil Engineering degree with one day release if you truly want a nice cushy job and throw the Investors in People accreditation at them if they refuse.
If you don't want boots on the ground and you lack University education look at getting into planning with the LNE North planning department up there, based at the York office.
I started at the bottom on a shovel and worked my way up, now I do planning in the week (i can do this from home but they want to see my face in the office now and then) and sit in my company car doing nothing as an Engineering Supervisor at the weekends if I want overtime, if I see a cushy job doing pre-works walkovers I'll put myself on them. Spent a few weeks with NR Western ASPRO & Infrastructure Projects teams before the lockdown acting as a COSS and advising on access planning for slope cutting stabilisation on the Vale of Glamorgan route in south Wales. The hardest thing I have to do is verbal briefs to workgroups (I'm a massive sperg at public speaking) and deal with Autistic signallers (all signallers are autistic for some reason) to blocks lines for safe working.
If you dedicate yourself, put the hard work in and go beyond your job description you'll end up running teams and then stepping up pretty fast.
