Spotlight on Honorary Fellow: Hilary Buxton
In this ongoing series of case studies, we’ve been catching up with some of our members, asking them about their careers to date, how IGEM has supported them up to now, and finding out what their thoughts are on the future of gas. Hilary Buxton is Cadent’s Director of Engineering and a Honorary Fellow Chartered Engineer member of IGEM. Here, she tells us her story so far.
Hilary’s career began in 1986 when she joined the gas industry (British Gas) graduate scheme, having completed a degree in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Leicester.
On this, she says she benefitted from great training and work experience placements across the organisation, which gave her insights into transmission, distribution, and construction through to retail and downstream of the meter (at the time, the industry was integrated) - “I learnt so much by spending time with our field-based engineers, and some of those insights stay with me today when tackling tricky situations,” she says.
“Over the last 35 years, I have worked predominantly within gas distribution (successor companies – British Gas plc, Transco/Lattice, National Grid Transco, National Grid, Cadent) and have pretty much turned my hand to everything – operations covering emergency, repair, connections, mains replacement through to maintenance of our higher-pressure assets and capital schemes for major construction works. I have undertaken network planning and design, commercial contracts management, innovation, programme management, operated the industry’s gas emergency call centres.”
“The diversity of roles available in this industry are endless, but all have the commonality of contributing to the common good of keeping people warm. That has been the hook which has kept me engaged with the gas industry for my whole career – there is always something new to learn, and we are constantly evolving and innovating. I’ve often been in a role which I consider the best job in the industry, only to move onto the next role and deem that the best!
“I’m currently Director of Engineering for Cadent, effectively the Chief Engineer, setting the engineering tramlines for the organisation to operate within legislative requirements and setting out optimal ways for us to safeguard the integrity of our plant and pipes. As the system operator, my team ensure the safe transportation of energy and security of supply for Cadent’s gas networks. And guess what?! It’s the best role you could have!
“I love solving puzzles and finding ways through challenges; I look at my career path as an explorers expedition seeking out steps which teach me something new and get me involved in finding solutions. I’ve had some great mentors over the years from both a professional development and career trajectory point of view – advice and support from experienced engineering leaders has been invaluable.”
As for stand out moments in her career, Hilary lists a few: rural gasification, building a pipeline, securing the IGEM travelling fellowship and spending a month in the Hungarian gas industry, developing engineers and mentors forums, navigating some extremely tricky situations (which she says are best not named), receiving the Gas Industry Award for Manager of the Year in 2021, and her current role.
On women in engineering, Hilary says: “I’m delighted to say I’ve seen a lot more women come into the technical side of the industry compared to the 1980s. When I joined the East Midlands region in 1986, there were three of us in the whole region. We were something of a novelty and felt quite ‘observed’ – it felt like we were in a petri dish being scrutinised to see how we developed! This meant I put additional pressure on myself which, in hindsight, wasn’t necessary. Today, we see many more women in the gas industry and the ‘novelty’ factor is fading away. The environment is much more inclusive – what matters is having good technical credentials and contributing, not your gender or background.”
She also notes that, while there is more balance and her team happily includes over 20 (17%) women in engineering and technical roles, there is still more to do as nationally we still see lower numbers of females studying STEM subjects at the higher levels and pursuing engineering careers.
So, what initiatives and activities does she think the gas industry could be doing to encourage more women into the sector? Firstly, Hilary thinks that we need to be demystifying engineering, providing role models, influencing the education sector, and raising the status of engineers as on par with medicine and accounting. She also thinks we should be more unconstrained – “perhaps we need a children’s writer such as JK Rowling or Roald Dahl to bring engineering alive, or a TV series centred around engineers – we see plenty of medical, police and vet dramas!”
Her advice to those starting out in the industry? “Be open to learning – you will never have all the answers! Be yourself and embrace the mindset to focus on what you can do but don’t discount yourself from something because you fear you can’t.”
Reflecting on her reasons for joining IGEM, Hilary says “when I joined the industry in the 80s, IGE (as it was then) was the place to meet people, build contacts, keep up with technical developments and showcase achievements. None of that has changed over the decades, I had trained as a mechanical engineer and pursued accreditation with both IMechE as well as IGEM. IGEM was much more complimentary to my day job though, and so it was easier to engage and interact with conferences, training, paper evenings et cetera as they interrelated with my work and people across the industry.
“IGEM provided many opportunities for me to build my competencies against the UK Engineering Council specification through writing and presenting technical papers, competing for awards, attending conferences and lectures. These experiences were contributory to reaching Chartered status and then have been integral to maintaining appropriate CPD. Over the last few years, I’ve taken a more active role on some of the committees associated with developing engineering standards. This is a real privilege to work with some of the great names of the industry as standards are brought up to date and now are moving through the process of becoming hydrogen ready. It’s quite a responsibility shaping engineering at an industry level and the amount of time and care so many people put in to getting it right is admirable.”
As for her engineering heroes, Hilary says “my mother was a historian and imbued in me an interest in our past which developed down the engineering route – I really admire engineers who have incredible vision. They dare to think the unthinkable and this unconstrained thinking leads to fabulous outcomes – the Romans were incredible engineers and developed amazing infrastructure right through from bridges and roads to drainage and early heating systems. Leonardo Da Vinci is probably best known for his artwork but his engineering designs for flying machines, warfare equipment and bicycles are outstanding. The industrial revolution was pretty phenomenal, and the Victorians engineered solutions with such longevity with major infrastructure in service to this day!
“If I had to name one though, it would be Sir Dennis Rooke. As we consider the transition to hydrogen, it brings to life the massive technical challenges he led the industry through during gas conversion working with engineers to find solutions.”
Looking ahead, Hilary says “as my career matures, I find myself thinking about the legacy I am creating to support our industry’s future. I’m really focused on our developing engineers and supporting them on their professional journey – this is really gathering momentum across Cadent and it’s immensely rewarding when they reach accreditation milestones. This is vital to create the right platform of engineering capability and talent to support transition to hydrogen. From a hydrogen perspective, my efforts are targeting establishing the technical authority to create the engineering framework for repurposing our networks to operate in a net zero world.”
On the future of gas, Hilary thinks the future will be bright and exciting: “we all have to move forward with a ‘can do’ approach, the shared intent and will to make it happen, find the solutions we need, develop the evidence to support the transition is vital to getting this over the line. I had the privilege of working with engineers back in the 80s who’d been part of the conversion journey and I always have felt a little like I’d missed out on something unique and ground-breaking as they’d get so fired up when reminiscing about that time. This is a whole new generation’s unique and ground-breaking period.”