Trams to Newhaven celebrates Maths Week Scotland

As a project, it is important that we support and engage in such digital campaigns as it helps to promote and instigate conversations around important topics within society.

This week, the project celebrated Maths Week Scotland, highlighting how different roles within the industry use maths in their everyday working life. #MathsWeekScotland was a fantastic way for our teams to reflect and share what subjects they completed during education experiences and how they have applied it throughout their career. 

We are passionate about nurturing and developing our workforce, in particular the development of our young workforce.  It is through campaigns like this that help to generate cross-generational discussions with the aim to inspire and encourage all those involved. 

We opened up discussions with a variety of our team members on the Trams to Newhaven Team, which included team members from boots on the ground to Quantity Surveyors to Risk Managers and asked them how they use the science of numbers! 

Work based learning, School engagements, Work Experience Placements, Apprenticeships, and partnership working with key community and educational groups are just some of the ways we endeavor to benefit the community through construction.  If you would like more information, please contact Laura Sutherland on 0131 322 1122. 

You can get involved with Maths Week online by using the #MathsWeekScot!

Name: Kenny Carson

Company / Position: Commercial Manager / Siemens

What subjects did you study at school? Maths, Physics, English, Art, Chemistry

What part does Maths play in my role? I work with figures all the time. Geometry, trigonometry and even integration are useful for working out areas and volumes.

Name: Ben Duerden

Company / Position: Risk Manager / Turner & Townsend            

What subjects did you study at school?  Physics, Maths, History

What part does Maths play in my role? As risk manager, my job is to help forecast the most likely outturn costs and time duration for the completion of the project. To do this I use estimates for the times and costs and put them into modelling software to obtain an overall predicted figure.

Name: Kerr Macnab

Company / Position: Senior Cost Manager / Turner & Townsend

What subjects did you study at school? Highers in Maths, English, French, Geography, Modern Studies & Chemistry

What part does Maths play in my role?  Maths plays an important part in my role as I deal with numbers whilst undertaking cost reports, estimates and valuations.

Name: Mark Lawson

Company / Position: Senior Quantity Surveyor / Siemens Mobility

What subjects did you study at school? Maths, English, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Geography, French

What part does Maths play in my role? I rely on maths everyday in my work!             

Name: Jamie 

Company / Position: Graduate Site Engineer / SFN

What subjects did you study at school? Maths, English, PE

What part does Maths play in my role? Setting out, reading drawings, ordering materials, costing, designing and many more!

Name:  John Lawson

Company / Position: Archaeological Officer / City of Edinburgh Council

What subjects did you study at school? Maths, Arithmetic, Physics, Biology, Chemistry, History, Technical Drawing, English

What part does Maths play in my role?  It’s behind most of what we do from basic survey work, counting and weighing finds, understanding plans and digital mapping through to the use of statistics and understanding of archaeological scientific techniques in dating, environmental analysis, conservation etc   

Name: Alastair Black

Company / Position: Senior Quantity Surveyor / SFN

What subjects did you study at school? Maths, Physics, Chemistry, English, History

What part does Maths play in my role?  A large part of my job is Maths