When you leave the Forces, you'll need new ways to use your skills. Our Engineering Academy can support you to gain recognised industry qualifications. So if you have a background in electrical, civil or mechanical engineering, control and instrumentation, or a specialist knowledge of gas and steam turbines or even vibration analysis, we can help you take these talents further.
We also have Professional Academies where you can develop your skills in areas such as Sales, HR or Finance.
In return we offer a competitive salary and benefits including a pension, private healthcare and generous holiday entitlement.
Lots of our people have already made the transition from the Forces to E.ON.
Here's what one of our engineers has to say:
Steve Swain - Maintenance Technician
Kemsley Combined Heat and Power Plant, Kent
"I left the Navy in 1993. I started looking for a job in August, had an interview and was hired within a week. In fact, I had two job offers, but one was closer to London and I didn't plan to commute or move house, so I started out at Gravehurst (which eventually became Kemsley Combined Heat and Power Plant a few years ago as part of E.ON). Maybe it was just luck, but one thing is definitely true; there's a shortage of qualified engineers in a range of disciplines. For a time, so many industries just didn't invest in enough training and there's a real skills shortage. Coming from the Navy, I had the advantage of civilian qualifications in electrical engineering. Navy training and apprenticeships are first-rate, and the additional skills I gained during my time in service have really come in useful since joining E.ON. But it's not just me that benefits - the company is able to achieve more thanks to my talents. That probably goes some way to explaining why there are plenty of other people here at Kemsley who formerly had careers as Navy Engineers."
The right job
"I like working in a smaller plant. There's a solid network of high-calibre people and I feel like I know everyone. I'm not really the type who comes to work in a tie and collar. And, I like to think that here people really appreciate experience and knowledge over, say, a university degree. It's not that I think education is unimportant. It's that I don't like to see technical skills undervalued. Also, working well with other people is such an important skill - and you won't learn it at any school. A sense of humour counts, too. It's definitely an asset worth having."
The right employer
"I left the Navy at the right time. There were real professional opportunities available and I was able to be there for my children as they grew up. I made a clean break from my first career and I don't miss going out to sea. But there's one more thing that stands out in my mind that I'd really like to add. E.ON supported me and my family through my wife's terminal illness. The private health insurance that's part of my benefits package made a huge difference to the treatment she had. In fact, we had another 18 months together that we might otherwise have lost. I know I work for an employer that puts people first, and that really matters to me."
Martin Taylor, Mechanical Engineer, Killingholme Power Station
Hello I'm Martin Taylor and welcome to Killingholme Power Station, which you can see in the background. I'm a mechanical engineer here. My background, I left the Royal Navy in 1998 as what you'll remember as a Chief Tiff - a mechanical artificer - and joined E.ON in 2004.
Over the years I've been working on gas turbines, boilers, steam turbines. It was just the thought of getting back into heavy industrial equipment again, the thought of working, well at a power station and with large rotating equipment. It's similar to what I did in the Navy, although that was on a smaller scale, it's the same type of work. It's the type of work I enjoy.
For those that are ex forces just think about your transferable skills. You'll have worked on very similar equipment - it may be smaller but the principles are all the same. You'll have project managed. When you've been shore side, you'll have been looking at ships that are coming in for maintenance; looking at their defects, you're getting your manpower together, you're getting materials together and you have to carry out that work within a specific time. It's exactly the same at a power station.
As well as the power stations, there's various aspects of E.ON. There's E.ON Engineering, who provide a lot of the high spec technical services to us. There's Central Networks, there's the trading side, there's the retail side. There's many aspects of it, not just power stations. We're not just about producing electric, we go all the way down the chain. You'll be surprised how compatible you are with a private company.
Joining E.ON, one of the first things I had to learn about, even though I'd done some of it as I say, with the armed forces in facilities management was contracts management. E.ON put me on a course; put me on their own in house course on how they do contract management. Over the past few years I've been to gas turbine conferences in Poland, Dubai, Berlin.
What's it like working for E.ON? It's good, it's varied. It's challenging as the business is continually changing. It's a private company; we've got to make money so we have to keep changing as the market dictates.
There's a lot of, I've met a lot of ex forces people over the last four years at various parts of E.ON. Here at Killingholme, in the engineering department there's other mechanical engineers; ex RAF on our operations side here, there's an ex navy, another ex RAF and also our plant manager is an ex sub mariner himself. So there's a lot of scope here for ex forces people and they are recognised as a valuable asset to the company.
Our People
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