Orla in driving seat for engineering role
Glasgow Uni graduate on her exciting post with car giant
WHEN she first started at Jaguar Land Rover, Orla Murphy wanted to make drivers and passengers feel they were in a concert hall whenever they listened to music in the car.
“A car is probably the most challenging environment to listen to music in,” smiles the Glasgow University graduate, who is one of the faces of today’s This is Engineering Day campaign to encourage more people into the industry.
“The space, the road noise – which changes depending on which surface you are driving on – it all has to be taken into account, which makes for some really interesting problem-solving.”
Problem-solving is what Orla loves most about her job and she is keen to change perceptions of the men-inhard-hats image of engineering.
“I do feel passionate about telling people – look, there is so much more to this job than people standing around building sites looking at plans, which is the kind of image you get when you search it it up online,” she laughs.
“There is much more diversity than that – the engineers I know are really cool people who work on all kinds of cutting-edge projects, in national security or even space.”
Orla, an accomplished viola player, came to Glasgow in 2008 to study electrical engineering with music.
“I loved maths, physics and music at school and this gave me a chance to do all three,” she says.
“I hadn’t planned to move away to study, but it was the only course of its kind, and it meant I didn’t have to give up any of my interests.
“In Glasgow, I also played with the
Kelvin Ensemble and worked as a part-time waitress in Balbir’s – it was an amazing city to live in and I felt like I really belonged. My dad used to call me his Scottish daughter.”
The Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) is behind today’s This is Engineering Day, part of Tomorrow’s Engineers Week.
“Engineering and technology play an incredible role in shaping the world around us and in addressing some of society’s biggest challenges, from providing a sustainable supply of food, water and clean energy, to advancing healthcare, and keeping us safe and secure,” said RAEng Chief Executive Hayaatun Sillem.
“We know that young people increasingly want to tackle these issues and make a difference in the world, but unfortunately the lack of understanding around engineering is stopping them from exploring careers that will enable them to do this.”
She added: “This matters because we face an estimated shortfall of up to 59,000 engineers each year in the UK, and there is a pressing need to diversify our engineering workforce, since only 12 percent of professional engineers are female and less than nine per cent are from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds.”
Now working for Jaguar Land Rover, Orla is one of 38,000 engineers employed by the company.
As an audio engineer, she has tested and tweaked in-car sound quality with every type of music, from Ed Sheeran to Mozart and she was also part of the Squeak and Rattle team, which finds unwanted noises in the car – from rattling door handles to windscreen wipers – and gets rid of them.
“I grew up on a farm in Cork and that background taught me a great work ethic,” says Orla, who won the IET’s Young Woman Engineer of the Year award in 2015.
“My parents were always working – farmers don’t have any choice.
“What I love about engineering is that it changes all the time – I have done six or seven different roles at JLR, and, as an engineer, you might work on 50 different projects.
“There are opportunities in all kinds of companies and industries – it is never boring and it’s a mindset that will stay with you for life.”