Case Study

Ambitious Aidan is one bright spark! Ingeus IT expert goes the extra mile

27 Feb 2023

Aidan Quilty’s career path may have taken an unexpected direction – but he’s in his element now. After gaining a distinction in his City & Guilds electrician’s course, Aidan thought his future was all mapped out. Finding an apprenticeship, however, was “like playing lucky dip”.
 
He spent three years as a production operative with a manufacturing company while searching for an electrician’s apprenticeship. A brief stint with the IT team generated the spark of an idea that would change the course of Aidan’s career.
 
“I’ve always liked computing – I enjoy being able to use my brain to troubleshoot and work things out,” says the 29-year-old father-of-three from Birmingham. “In my past job on the production line, I was doing the same thing every day and I got bored. I was always tired because I was working shifts. My partner was having a baby at the time, and I knew I needed to make a career switch.”
 
Aidan completed two apprenticeships as an IT technician and IT support officer, working at his old secondary school. This was followed by a brief spell with the NHS in Dorchester before Aidan and his family returned to Birmingham.
 
“When I came back, I had lots of interviews, but the Ingeus manager really sold it to me,” says Aidan. “She said there are ample opportunities for growth and development. I knew the job had potential.”
 
Aidan joined Ingeus as a first-line IT service desk analyst in July 2021 and pulled out all the stops. Within six weeks he successfully applied for a second-line analyst role. He became a desktop support engineer, and a year later, was promoted to his current role of IT technical lead engineer.
 
“It’s a big team and I thought there’s going to be competition and a lot of people wanting to get to the next level. I made sure I was doing additional work to prove myself. I took on a hardware role, sending laptops to new starters. It felt natural to get involved with everything. If you just do the job you’re paid to do, you’re not going to stand out.”
 
Aidan took several courses on LinkedIn to gain extra skills and is also making use of training opportunities offered by Ingeus. “There’s a lot of support here and courses are readily available,” Aidan says. “I’m doing an ITIL course, funded by the business. There’s lots of internal training covering IT and data protection. I’m also doing a Microsoft Azure admin certification.”
 
So, what does a typical day look like for Aidan, as technical lead for both the first and second-line service desk? He says: “I work with the team leaders and service delivery manager. I start early and check the services are up and running. We have a general meeting about the issues, looking at the workflow and seeing where we need to prioritise and spend our efforts. It’s quite complex because there are a lot of different contracts Ingeus delivers. I like the challenge, it’s not straightforward. It’s a good team and you’re always learning new skills.”
 
Aidan enjoys solving problems to make life easier for his colleagues, especially new starters getting used to Ingeus technology. He says: “My work ethic is to try to improve the process of how we do things, instead of just fixing something that’s a recurring problem. I try to eradicate the problem altogether.”
 
For Aidan, IT is a career passion: “You’ve got to be willing to put the extra effort in to learn because IT changes so quickly," he says. "If you just do it because you want a job, you will struggle to go far.”
 
It’s a rewarding career and a far cry from those days at the factory, when Aidan often found himself watching the clock. He says: “Since I came into IT, I’ve never had a day where it’s dragging or I think ‘get me out of here’. It goes too quickly if anything!”