I’m living the dream
Car nut Todd works for Aston Martin
EVER since he could remember, Todd Downs, 22, has been obsessed with cars. It is no wonder that the petrolhead from Coventry is now convinced he has his dream job as an engineer for elite British car manufacturer – and James Bond’s favourite – Aston Martin.
How obsessed is obsessed?
I can’t remember a time when I didn’t love cars. I read and watched everything I could and when mates were buying comics I was getting Top Gear. I never imagined I’d one day work with cars because at school I studied drama, art and music.
How did you pull off getting this dream job?
I was about 15 and it was our school summer fair and I spotted this gorgeous Aston Martin being driven across the field. I ran over to look at it and started chatting to the owner.
It turned out he was in the marketing department at Aston Martin and that I knew more about the car than he did. He was impressed and suggested I might try a bit of work experience there. I leapt at the chance and that holiday did a few weeks working in different departments. I was in heaven.
How did that become paid work?
As I was doing my GCSEs I saw they were looking for apprentices and applied. There’s no doubt that having been there for work experience meant I had a foot in the door. I knew more about the departments and how the company worked, which gave me things to talk about at interviews. It paid off. Weeks after I got my exam results I started work there.
I did a four-year apprenticeship which I finished last year.
It was a mixture of college and on-the-job training and I even won Aston Martin Apprentice of the Year. I had to give a presentation to show I was worth keeping on.
What are you doing?
I spent eight months as a Development Quality Engineer and am now a Body Structures Engineer. My main job is looking after exterior panels plus bumpers and door assemblies. If there are any engineering issues we will try to recreate problems and correct them. We are such a tight team here though that if engineers are needed anywhere else in the plant I will lend a hand.
Is it a petrolhead’s dream?
I love the cars as much as I ever did even though I work with them every day. I am really proud to be a part of something so great. The most amazing perk of this is that I get to drive the cars, although I had to do a special driving test first.
Without a doubt my favourite is the new DBS Superleggera (£225,000). I would never have dared to dream that I could drive one. It’s a bit different to my own 1999 T-reg Ford Puma.
CONTACTS
Find out more and keep up with the world of engineering at This is Engineering, a campaign to raise awareness of the vast and varied opportunities in this sector – thisisengineering.org.uk and @ThisIsEng.
Women’s Engineering Society – wes. org.uk.
Engineering UK – engineeringuk.com. The Institution of Engineering & Technology – theiet.org.
Sector Skills Council for Science, Engineering and Manufacturing Technologies – semta.org.uk.
WISE Campaign to encourage women to become engineers – wisecampaign.org.uk.
ENGINEER A JOB
Engineers have a hand in almost everything we do and that means lots of jobs. We have found 41,681 jobs and training opportunities. If you want to follow in Todd’s footsteps check out astonmartinlagonda.com.
At fish4jobs.co.uk there are 3,478 jobs ranging from an application sales engineer in Sheffield (£36,192) to a tech support engineer in Bristol (£19,000).
We spotted 10,400 engineering jobs at gov.uk/jobsearch including a food manufacturing engineer in Coventry (£31,000 to £32,000) and a marine engineer in North Walsham, Norfolk (£13.50 per hour). The Institution of Engineering & Technology jobsite at engineering-jobs.theiet.org lists 137 jobs, while engineeringjobs.co.uk has 24,885 roles such as a fire and security service engineer in Portsmouth (£25,000 to £30,000) and a commercial heating estimator in Reading (up to £40,000).
Hays (hays.co.uk) has 1,750 jobs and ncejobs.co.uk a further 534 engineering vacancies.
There are 497 engineering apprenticeships at getingofar.gov.uk.
I now get to drive Astons, which is amazing