Learning the ropes

I got encouraged into it by caving friends who were doing it. The money isn't bad and it is steady work. A lot of people do it from a climbing background, where you are used to being at height.

I was a tour guide for six years caving in the Peak District before I started work with HRS Services.

You wouldn't go into this job if you were worried by heights.

I like caving because it is something different. You get to go somewhere where not a lot of people have been. I get involved in exploration. Then you know that absolutely no one has been there, although those chances are few and far between.

The job is inherently safe. The Health and Safety and IRATA (Industrial Rope Access Trade Association) guidelines mean you are working continually on two ropes, so you always have a back-up. There have been no serious accidents in the company in the six years I have worked for it.

The people who generally do this job are pretty switched on.

There is a very stringent set of guidelines and training schemes where you have to get qualified through IRATA to work up ropes.

I work on the structural examination of bridges, mostly for the rail industry. HRS also does a lot of air sealing work for the big supermarkets, up in the roofs. It cuts down on their heating bills.

You learn to do inspections through experience on site. You go out with the guys who have been for a number of years and learn from them. That is changing now. More formal training programmes are coming in. HRS is going through the process to become an examiner to check for competencies.

You see some amazing scenery and get to work up and down Britain. I worked on the Ribble Head Viaduct in the Yorkshire Dales.

Some jobs are more physical than others. You occasionally may be doing geotechnical work where you are drilling into rock cuttings.

My favourite job was on the QE2 Bridge in Dartford where we did a lot of painting. We were a couple of hundred feet up above the Thames. It was quite stunning.

I had done enough travelling after a while. I moved into the office a year ago. I am operations manager now. I price work for clients and win tenders, then manage the job right the way through, sourcing the labour and materials. cm