A fulfilling career in which Nicola takes "a lot of quiet pride."
The ‘Warwickshire Women in Engineering 2025’ campaign has been launched by Warwickshire County Council to encourage women to consider working in the sector. Here, Nicola Van der Hoven, WCC’s Head of Engineering Design Services, reflects that engineering offers a very special and rewarding career – and it’s open to all.
Many a life is shaped and many a career launched by the wise and timely input of a teacher. That was very much the case for Nicola Van der Hoven whose interest in and talent for engineering was spotted by a college teacher who nurtured that potential and set it on course for a successful and highly rewarding career.
Nicola is Head of Engineering Design Services, Warwickshire County Council’s civil engineering service. She leads a team of 110 which is responsible for all new highway and bridge improvement schemes across the county. Working closely with the County Highways and Transport Strategy and Road Safety teams, her team delivers projects costing around £30million a year.
Her work has a huge impact on the county and its communities, making them flow and function and literally shaping the landscape of Warwickshire for the future. An engineer in various roles at the county council for 21 years, Nicola admits she does take "a lot of quiet pride" in her impact on the county.
And it all started with Mr Gregory!
“I was directed towards engineering when I was doing A levels,” she said. “My friend and I were doing maths and physics and my physics teacher found some courses to introduce us to different sorts of engineering. The one we chose covered chemical, electrical, civil and mechanical engineering and I just felt an affinity to civil engineering. In civil engineering there is a very obvious output to each project. When my colleagues and I drive through Warwickshire, we literally see the work we are doing. That is brilliant – you feel a real connection to the county.
“I do take a lot of quiet pride in my work. I was part of the scheme which renovated the waterside area near the Royal Shakespeare Theatre at a time when lots of things were changing. That was a big refresh and very exciting. But the most rewarding projects are not so much those hailed as a great success as those that you learn a lot from. We did a cycle scheme to the south of the University of Warwick and had to deal with a lot of difficulties around protected animal species and invasive plant species. It was challenging but also fascinating.”
Engineering is a broad church. It offers a plethora of directions in which to specialise and the historical imbalance between men and women working in the sector is now levelling out. It is a profession which is now very much open to all.
“It’s not necessarily the first thing that girls and young women think about as a potential career,” says Nicola. “So in the last few years myself and others at the county council have been involved in celebrating International Women in Engineering Day. That’s about providing opportunities for women, and all people, across the built environment, creating connections and allowing people to see what the opportunities exist.
“In the Engineering Design team, we have a really solid training scheme for graduates, technicians and degree apprentices. It’s all about creating the structure for people to learn what the career is and then build up the steps that work through it. It’s really important that we attract the people that are really good for this sector and give them the opportunities, whoever they are and whatever their backgrounds.
“I think in the past certain career paths were presented at school. It is different now and I can’t think of a single function within the work we do that couldn’t be done by a man or a woman. There is no limitation – and it is a career in which you meet some amazing people and work on some important and really rewarding projects.”
* Fore more information on graduate opportunities at Warwickshire County Council, please visit here