Case studies: Maintenance technician: Stephen

Stephen decided to become a maintenance engineer as his father worked in the area and he wanted to follow him into the field. He is currently a maintenance technician and is using his HNC qualification to become an instructor in future.

Stephen came into engineering as a mature student and started off as an apprentice. Stephen was used as a guinea pig as he was the first apprentice this particular company took on that was outside the usual 16-25 age group. The company he works for have offered him a healthy amount of training opportunities including studying for his HNC and potentially a doctorate.

Stephen was interested in how things worked from an early age and found there are a wide range of routes into engineering. He has been fortunate in gaining employment with an organisation offering long-term professional development and opportunities of building up qualifications and skills. He found out about his job through his father and was successful in his application.

The theory side of the electronics is the most useful part of his HNC course, as coming through a vocational route he has had a lot of practical opportunities however less theoretical models. Stephen is looking to go into the teaching side and so wants to get the basics from this course. In the future he is going to be teaching on vehicles and servo systems, so needs to learn the basics from this course. The HNC course is extremely relevant as without it, he could not go on to teach.

Stephen works on military vehicles teaching repair policies to soldiers. He works on tanks and other artillery vehicles, to make them fit for purpose in war time situation. He also teaches the soldiers maintenance and repair of the vehicles when out in the field. He is currently attached to the army, but is listed as a civilian. He is based at an army base where soldiers come for training.

Stephen says, ‘I am the equivalent of a lab assistant; I prepare all the vehicles for teaching sessions and ensure they are fully functional and maintained to a standard ready for teaching. If someone needs to put something on them as a teaching aid then I would organise this. This requires a good all round mechanical knowledge of the vehicles the army use.

‘I love working on the military equipment. Ever since I was young, I’ve loved military vehicles and now I get to find out how they work and how to maintain them. I also get to drive them, for testing purposes, which is a lot of fun.’