Being able to browse through 15 years of someone else’s experience in the industry is pretty fascinating in itself; but it also does a lot to promote and celebrate good, honest, civil engineering.

Last year I got an email from an engineer called David. After seeing my embarrassment of a video about loving civil engineering, he wrote to tell me that he, too, loved civil engineering. But what he also did, was tell me about a project he’s been working on to share his career in the profession: an online engineering portfolio.

As someone who is forever saying we should do more to share our work with the public; I was a little embarrassed to realise that the idea of a portfolio had never crossed my mind. It’s a simple thing; and so much of our work is visual (sketches, analysis plots, drawings, site photographs) that it really lends itself to the format.

David started his online portfolio as a way of helping civil engineers working in the building and design of bridges. At last count there are 43 projects featured; charting his time with Kier, May Gurney, Alfred McAlpine, Carillion, Birse, Balfour Beaty, Network Rail- with a massive amount of information and photographs. It’s really satisfying to see his photos tracing projects from breaking ground to black-top; in fact, by the time I finished, I was fairly envious of his career!

Being able to browse through 15 years of someone else’s experience in the industry is pretty fascinating in itself; but it also does a lot to promote and celebrate good, honest, civil engineering. Too often, I think, engineering campaigns get tied up in attempting to force the glitz and glamour of “saving the world” and building architectural mega-structures, and forget the actual civil works behind it.

Maybe it’s time we all started a portfolio? But until then:

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