Automotive/Motorsport Engineering Career Advice
Discussion
I thought this being PH and all, there must be a few on here that are in automotive/motorsport engineering. In need of a little advice, more for my brother's benefit than mine.
He's currently doing AS levels and everyone's been getting on his back about a career choice as he has to pick his uni courses (or whatever he wants to do) shortly.
We've been through a few suggestions from cameraman to sports journalist to motorsport engineer, him being by far the most enthusiastic about the latter. I don't know the first thing about it as a career to give any advice, bar having an interest in the subject.
So can anyone give any sound advice as to how he might progress?
e.g. uni courses, apprenticeships, qualifications, where jobs may be in a few years time, things he can look at. In an ideal world I'm sure he wants Adrian Newey's job! (I'd have Vettel's personally
).
His mind's not made up properly yet so he'd be well open to suggestion.
Cheers in advance.
He's currently doing AS levels and everyone's been getting on his back about a career choice as he has to pick his uni courses (or whatever he wants to do) shortly.
We've been through a few suggestions from cameraman to sports journalist to motorsport engineer, him being by far the most enthusiastic about the latter. I don't know the first thing about it as a career to give any advice, bar having an interest in the subject.
So can anyone give any sound advice as to how he might progress?
e.g. uni courses, apprenticeships, qualifications, where jobs may be in a few years time, things he can look at. In an ideal world I'm sure he wants Adrian Newey's job! (I'd have Vettel's personally
). His mind's not made up properly yet so he'd be well open to suggestion.
Cheers in advance.
supraboy said:
I'm a final year Motorsport Management student.
Best advice I could give is to get as much experience as possible in Motorsport, volunteering on race weekends for club teams is the best place to start.
Thanks for the response, that's a really good idea I'll suggest we have a look at some.Best advice I could give is to get as much experience as possible in Motorsport, volunteering on race weekends for club teams is the best place to start.
Anyone else?
There's loads of grads coming out of uni with 'motorsport degrees' these days, unfortunately very few have the first idea about what actually happens in 'motorsport'.
Luckily, if he's still as AS stage then he still has time. As above, get volunteering with local teams - get out to race meetings, see how cars are run, experience different car designs. Then, when he gets to Uni he'll appreciate and be able to apply what he learns to real life scenarios which he has experienced.
During Uni he will need to look at specialising in either race engineering or design engineering (you can do both, but to be honest in the best teams the skills needed for each is extremely different).
A Race engineer is typically someone who has an expert knowledge of vehicle dynamics from basic design principals through to practical car setup. This tends to be quite a mathematical type role and required lots of spreadsheet work and a there's a few specialized computer programs they tend to pick up (although the best guys tend to write their own!). Newbies tend to work for a pittance for a few years after uni to get experience but when it pays of it can go well, but there's very few top end jobs around.
A design engineer needs to have a be more biased to mechanical knowledge - understanding how things are made, how systems work, materials etc. Need to get good at a couple of CAD programs for most jobs these days but to be honest that's the easy bit, the tricky stuff is learning all the manufacturing methods and actually having the ideas of good designs. Money can be good, especially for good consultants. Guys with motor sport design experience always have very little trouble getting into automotive companies when they fancy a slightly slower pace of life!
Hope this helps!
Luckily, if he's still as AS stage then he still has time. As above, get volunteering with local teams - get out to race meetings, see how cars are run, experience different car designs. Then, when he gets to Uni he'll appreciate and be able to apply what he learns to real life scenarios which he has experienced.
During Uni he will need to look at specialising in either race engineering or design engineering (you can do both, but to be honest in the best teams the skills needed for each is extremely different).
A Race engineer is typically someone who has an expert knowledge of vehicle dynamics from basic design principals through to practical car setup. This tends to be quite a mathematical type role and required lots of spreadsheet work and a there's a few specialized computer programs they tend to pick up (although the best guys tend to write their own!). Newbies tend to work for a pittance for a few years after uni to get experience but when it pays of it can go well, but there's very few top end jobs around.
A design engineer needs to have a be more biased to mechanical knowledge - understanding how things are made, how systems work, materials etc. Need to get good at a couple of CAD programs for most jobs these days but to be honest that's the easy bit, the tricky stuff is learning all the manufacturing methods and actually having the ideas of good designs. Money can be good, especially for good consultants. Guys with motor sport design experience always have very little trouble getting into automotive companies when they fancy a slightly slower pace of life!
Hope this helps!
What is he studying at college?
Depending on the role and company you start with there are lots of opportunities to move about the industry. Experience is key and getting summer work for an engineering firm will really help getting a job at the end. Combine this with volunteering with race teams and you become attractive to employers. Of course getting grades will help.
I lucked into my job having studied the wrong thing, however a lot of the grads we take on do the above.
Depending on the role and company you start with there are lots of opportunities to move about the industry. Experience is key and getting summer work for an engineering firm will really help getting a job at the end. Combine this with volunteering with race teams and you become attractive to employers. Of course getting grades will help.
I lucked into my job having studied the wrong thing, however a lot of the grads we take on do the above.
Cheers everyone for the responses, will have a talk to him and suggest some of these things. He's doing well at Maths and Physics AS level so engineering seems like a decent choice.
It's a good choice as I'd definitely take him along to local races etc if he wanted to go.
Anyone know of where might be top in terms of Uni for these things?
It's a good choice as I'd definitely take him along to local races etc if he wanted to go.
Anyone know of where might be top in terms of Uni for these things?
Also Bath, Imperial, Brunel are all good uni's.
My younger brothr went to Bath and he works in motorsport, a friend works for McLaren (was at Mercedes) and another couple of friends that work at Jaguar Land Rover.
What is critical is not only having a good degree from a good uni, but also a good grade! As regardless what they say in the news about lack of engineers in this country, there is no surplus of roles in this industry so it really needs to be something you want to do.
My younger brothr went to Bath and he works in motorsport, a friend works for McLaren (was at Mercedes) and another couple of friends that work at Jaguar Land Rover.
What is critical is not only having a good degree from a good uni, but also a good grade! As regardless what they say in the news about lack of engineers in this country, there is no surplus of roles in this industry so it really needs to be something you want to do.
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