Matthew Fieldhouse was part of our very first Omnia Academy cohort back in 2023; since then, he’s become something of an expert at LiDAR scanning (as he’d tell you himself, that’s using laser pulses to create 3D models), is well on his way to completing an HNC in Electrical Engineering, and has gained on-the-job experience at some of the UK’s most dynamic energy sector projects. We spoke to him from his base at Omnia’s Northallerton office to find out a little bit more about what it means to be a trainee at the UK’s most trusted engineering consultancy.
Hi Matt! Thanks for chatting with us today. Can you tell us how you came to join the Omnia Academy?
After I finished my A Levels, I took a gap year while I worked out what I wanted to do. There was one thing I knew for sure, which was that I didn’t want to go to university. Too much sitting in a classroom, not enough practical work. Nearly every career path requires some kind of further education nowadays, but I think it’s just as important to have some variety in your week. Anyway, I heard about the Omnia Academy, thought, “hey, I’ve got nothing to lose” and applied for it. And here I am.
It must have been pretty daunting to get to grips with a whole new way of doing things.
I was worried about that, at least until I actually began the traineeship. I’m not one to do things by halves, so I decided to just throw myself in. It’s amazing how quickly you start thinking like an engineer! In the Academy, we’re really lucky because there’s so much emphasis on mentorship; we’re surrounded by engineers who have years of experience. So I picked up a lot of the foundations really quickly from people who have a lot of knowledge, which you can’t beat in this industry. Knowledge is everything, and at Omnia, they have it in spades.
How did that translate to day-to-day learning?
I found out early on that you can know as much theory as you want- the HNC has been great for that- but the experience that you get being on-site, managing a project, designing something: that’s how you really learn. Because all the engineers at Omnia have been through the mill themselves- they know what it’s like to do this for a job, and they essentially said, “ask as many questions as you need.” It’s a great way to do things.
Sounds pretty different from school or university.
Absolutely. For one, we earn while we learn, even on the day we spend at college studying for our HNC- the salary doesn’t hurt! In all seriousness, I think that the fact that the Academy is relatively new means that as trainees, we’ve been able to shape how we’re taught and what we study. The most exciting project I’ve been involved with is LiDAR, which is pretty new technology; I get to process the data I collect to create a 3D model of whichever substation I’m working at. When I told the engineers how much I enjoyed it, they tailored my workload to ensure that I get to participate in other projects which involve it. I know this has been the case for other trainees too. Obviously the goal is to prepare us for a career in a sector which is currently- I guess you’d call it future-proofing. So a lot of what we study, and the projects we work on, are at the forefront of decarbonising the UK’s power sector. The government wants a completely decarbonised power sector by 2035. I’ll be 32 by then. So the idea that I’m learning things which will keep my job relevant in the future is really encouraging.
What advice would you give to anybody thinking of applying for the Omnia Academy?
The first thing I’d say is that you have to be prepared to work hard. Occasionally, there’ll be a bit of studying that I need to catch up on over the weekend. If that’s the case, it gets done at the weekend. Of course, the pay-offs are huge; this is a career for life, and Omnia’s just about the best place you can do it- you’d struggle to find a more experienced team. The other piece of advice I’d give is that you have to be disciplined, because there’s a lot of spontaneity in what we do. I love knowing that I could be going anywhere in the country to work on a project, and that even though I’m a trainee, I’m part of the team and it’s my responsibility to help make it a success. But you have to keep on top of things and really apply yourself to every task you’re set.
Given that you're still learning, does that worry you?
The idea’s a bit daunting, but once I started at the Academy, I realised how much the Omnia engineers went out of their way to support me. Everyone has to learn sometime, and it helps that you’re not just a student; it’s not the kind of traineeship where they bog you down with performance reviews and then say, “see you next semester!”. It’s a job where you’re encouraged to work things out and apply that knowledge as you go. So for someone who’s ambitious but isn’t into the kind of hands-off approach that a lot of engineering courses seem to take nowadays, I’d tell them that Omnia is a great place to be.
Last question: what does your future look like?
I’ll be finishing my HNC in about eighteen months; after that, my on-the-job training continues, and then I’ll move into Omnia as a fully-qualified engineer. I want to stay at Omnia long-term. Because it’s an engineering consultancy, it’s kind of like being at the forefront of everything. There’s no waiting around- you get to work on projects which are really happening and there’s something satisfying about being able to play an active role in that. And the way the sector’s moving forward, I’m gonna be busy, that’s for sure!