Electrical engineer Sadia Maqsood resolved to put her technical skills to good use after becoming passionate about the damage caused by climate change. Having worked in a variety of roles, she relaunched her career and set out to find a job in sustainable energy.
“I was studying a lot at that time about climate change and I was feeling quite passionate about sustainable energy sources. Then I stumbled on a position at Siemens,” she says.
Maqsood started out as a junior manager on wind turbines at Siemens UK five years ago. She is now a senior project manager, working with clients from electricity companies to install turbines across the UK and Ireland.
“Once the contract gets signed, it is my job to bring to fruition everything that has been planned and to implement it. That requires a lot of planning. All the turbines and components are manufactured in our factories and I am responsible for making sure they are produced on time. I also manage a team of people.”
One of the biggest logistical challenges is transporting the massive wind turbines, which can be up to 120 metres high, with blades spanning 90 metres. These huge structures have to be taken by road from a sea port – many are manufactured in Vietnam – to the wind park, which could be a nine-hour drive.
“It’s a big task in itself to physically get the roadworks ready for transport,” she says. “It requires us to make a lot of modifications to the roads infrastructure and we need to do a lot of widening of corners.”
Maqsood was born and raised in Pakistan and studied electrical engineering at the University of Engineering and Technology in Lahore. She had dreamed of becoming an engineer, following in her father’s footsteps, since she was five. After graduating, she worked for Norwegian telecoms giant Telenor in Pakistan before emigrating to the UK in 2009 and working as a project manager on the switchover from analogue to digital TV.
She says there is room for more women in the wind energy sector, adding that she has experienced no discrimination.
“You can imagine, in Pakistan, it was quite odd for a woman to be an engineer – there were only a few girls in my class. Then I was really surprised when I came to the UK and again there were only a few girls in engineering. I work with colleagues from other countries like Denmark and Germany and there are a lot more women in project management,” she says.
She loves her new career in wind power, especially visits to remote windswept mountains and sweeping hillsides. Fighting climate change and saving the planet take her to some truly beautiful places.
