‘We all have a responsibility to ensure the highest H&S standards’

Civil engineer and APS member Amy Dillon added another accolade to her already impressive list in September 2024 when she was named STEM Champion at the Inspiring Women in Construction and Engineering Awards. 

Now in a role as principal engineer for the Northern Ireland-based structural and civil consultant Design ID, with a health and safety remit, Dillon started winning awards almost as soon as she began work in the sector. That was in 2012 at Sir Robert McAlpine, after graduating from Nottingham with a first-class civils degree. 

She has been named as one of the Top 50 Women in Engineering by the Women’s Engineering Society and The Telegraph in 2017, as well as being honoured by NCE magazine’s Recognising Women in Engineering Awards for making a significant contribution to the construction industry and by the Royal Academy of Engineering as one of their Young Engineers of the Year in 2020. 

Here we find out more about her career and what drives her on.

I’m a chartered civil engineer, with a background in contracting, including the Northern Spire bridge in my hometown of Sunderland. 

I joined Design ID in 2019. It’s a structural and civil engineering consultancy which has been growing very rapidly, with lots of contractor clients. I manage teams and projects, and handle contractor liaison and the logistics of jobs, particularly the more challenging jobs, where my knowledge of buildability is very useful.

As well as that, I’m the company’s health and safety lead. I was not recruited with that in mind but the company was taking on bigger jobs and they needed someone to look after this side of the business. I have a lot of experience and qualifications in health and safety, so it made sense for me to take on the role.

I started my career at Sir Robert McAlpine as a graduate civil engineer, and got some really good experience. I then went to Amec Foster Wheeler for a year – that was in consultancy. And then in 2017/18 I saw that a major bridge was being built in Sunderland, so I applied to Farrans Construction, the contractor building it, saying “Hi, can I come and help you build it, please?” And they said “Yes, come on!” and gave me the job of senior site engineer on the project.

That was a great time. I was still quite a junior engineer, but was given relatively senior jobs to do on what was a £180m project. Seeing the bridge deck be pushed out across the river from land and then the pylon coming down the river and being lifted into position was really exciting – probably the highlight of my professional life.

Two other things made it very memorable. I was asked to be part of the team that named the bridge, and we came up with the Northern Spire. I was also part of the team selected to meet Prince William on a royal visit, which was a huge day for the project. 

Then I spent one year in Farrans’ bid department, based in Belfast, gaining experience in estimating and tendering. 

Yes, Design ID are based just outside of Belfast, in Hillsborough, although they’ve also got offices in London and Dublin.  

When I joined the company five years ago, there were around 30 in the company: this has now doubled to over 70. I feel pleased I’ve been able to contribute to that growth, because I’ve developed the health and safety policies and procedures that have allowed the company to win bigger jobs and carry out those jobs safely.

I’ve always been interested in health and safety, right from the start of my career. I found I had a natural aptitude for it. Working on such a busy and large site as Northern Spire, you could really see the importance of high standards with good leadership and policies and procedures. And I enjoyed learning more and completing qualifications to ensure I was able to keep everyone as safe as possible. 

I was working as CRE (contractor’s responsible engineer) on Network Rail projects in London. Here I would assist contractors with liaison with Network Rail and help gain necessary approvals for the project to go ahead. 

There are huge risks and specific challenges involved with working close to railways and I really enjoyed the complexity of understanding all of the specific standards and working out how to best carry out the works and mitigate risks. 

This is a highly pressurised role due to the high risk with activities involved on the critical path of projects, meaning any delay can cost large sums of money or hold up the project.  

I am project lead of an exciting new educational initiative. We have a 13m long, 3m high cable-stayed bridge kit, which we take to schools in a trailer. 

Students then work in teams to build the bridge – starting on both sides and meeting in the middle. Then they get to test it by walking across and it is such a joy to see how enthusiastic and excited they are and how much we are able to teach them about construction and careers in STEM.

In the first year, we’ve reached over 1,100 pupils in Northern Ireland, but are inundated with requests. We’re now looking for new partners to help us scale that up and allow us to continue to take it to schools free of charge. Businesses can sign on as a patron, which will show clients what they’re doing to boost social value. 

I’ve also worked with the Institution of Civil Engineers to create the online game CityZen, a digital game for sixth-form students. They play as a team to construct a city and make decisions as real life civil engineers do.

Even in my relatively short time in the industry I have seen health and safety standards improve, with it being part of the conversation in all activities in tender, design, construction and maintenance. I would like to see this continue, along with the current emphasis on wellness, long-term health and wellbeing. 

There is a challenge with ‘price only’ tenders where the lowest price wins and we all have a responsibility to ensure that the highest standards of health and safety are upheld in these jobs when margins are being squeezed. 

Yes, I find them very impressive. A lot of the training they do is really useful and very accessible, and I take a lot of ‘lunch and learn’ ideas into our company.

I am currently working towards chartered status with APS and will hopefully complete this in 2025.

For details about becoming a patron of the Big Bridge Project contact [email protected] or visit www.thebigbridge.co.uk.