Tom Baron left the Army in 2017 after 11 years serving with the Royal Engineers. During his time, he supervised and led a number of large teams in a range of highly challenging environments across the globe, including three operational tours, and more recently he was in charge of delivering course training to recruits, junior commanders and instructors. This included section level infantry skills, combat engineering, defence instructional techniques (DIT) and command-leadership-management (CLM) courses.

Tom attended an ex-forces networking event organised by BuildForce, who were then able to organise a work placement for him with Doncaster-based housebuilding company KeepMoat, alongside a Site Manager with 15 years experience. This role, along with the broad range of communication, management and problem solving skills gained in the Army, provided him with the stepping stone to his current role as Site Agent for the major infrastructure group and BuildForce alliance partner Balfour Beatty.

In practice this means managing a civil engineering site and holding overall responsibility for Health & Safety, ensuring all contracts are delivered by Balfour Beatty, subcontractors and suppliers, managing issues and risk and escalating them where necessary. And what advice does Tom have for other service leavers?

“Spend some time researching which area of the industry fits your skill set and interests you. Then go out and get some quality work experience, as much as possible. Lots of service leavers, myself included, become fixated on qualifications, but most large organisations will free training when you’re employed. It’s about demonstrating how what you’ve done in the military can work in their environment. Having lots of work experience proves that.”