Who said females couldn’t be in a leadership position within a construction company by their early 30s? Newly promoted Emma Weller is defying misconceptions in her career, as a young, female, digital engineer heading up Elementa’s UK BIM department. Since starting out as an apprentice and joining Elementa 5 years ago as a BIM coordinator, Emma has progressed quickly within the firm to Associate Principal. Helping to transform the BIM team which has grown in size significantly and continues to evolve, we catch up for 5 quick questions with Emma:
Can you sum up your career journey to date?
A whirlwind. If someone would have told me 15 years ago when starting out as an apprentice that I would be leading a national team, I wouldn’t have believed it. Reflecting on my journey now I feel fortunate that I fell into the construction industry, but it was pure chance that I did, as at the time there was no promotion or advertisement of it as a career path, especially to females. My school just so happened to organise a trip to a multidisciplinary engineering consultancy which is where my journey began after applying for an apprenticeship.
Do you believe enough is being done to promote the construction industry as a viable career to young people?
I was one of only 3 females on my engineering course at college which made sense to me due to the lack of exposure in education. It made me realise how little was being done to endorse the industry to schools and how many missed opportunities there were. Since then, I have been passionate about advocating a career in engineering and construction through mentorship, presenting at school career fairs, becoming a STEM ambassador, and creating work experience and apprenticeship opportunities. I truly believe the next generation of creative students is what drives innovation within the industry.
[Left: Emma speaking at WorldSkills UK’s Spotlight on Green Jobs. Right: Emma presenting to a secondary school on a career in engineering]
How did you end up in the BIM discipline?
At the beginning of my building services apprenticeship, I was applying my skills to various tasks but really enjoyed and excelled at Drawing management & production. When BIM swept the construction industry, I undertook a REVIT training course which is where I began to understand the power of software & how it could improve & change our approach to projects. This new digital way of working to translate 2D engineering principles into coordinated buildable environments was a movement I wanted to be part of and have focused my career ever since.
How is Elementa progressing within the digital engineering industry?
Elementa have long been vocal on their vision, to drive deep green solutions into all projects and accelerate meeting climate goals. They recognised the vital role BIM has in driving the industry to coordinate projects and optimise delivery of these targets efficiently and effectively. The use of data throughout the lifecycle of a building from conception to operation will be key to meeting our net zero targets.
I was challenged two years ago to create a stronger team to deliver these expectations. Since presenting my strategy on how we could deliver better solutions to our clients, Elementa has invested in my vision and team. We are delivering large scale projects including the delivery of 150 Holborn which will soon be the new home to Elementa and sister companies under the Dar brand. It has been rewarding to work on a project which we will be occupying which is a rather rare experience.
Being promoted to Associate Principal motivates me further to seek future solutions that will benefit our projects through the use of digital technologies and workflows.
[Emma working alongside Elementa’s BIM apprentice Kai Devani]
What’s next…
As we continue to discover new ways that BIM can improve project buildability, I am excited to develop and embed embodied carbon data into our processes. We are on the way to developing BIM data models that signal to clients early on the embodied carbon factors within equipment which should assist in early recognition and mitigation – to ensure climate targets are consistently at the forefront of design.