Courses in Railway Management

[Arriva Fan]

Hello All,

I would quite like to get into the Transport Industry in an office based role, hopefully one day progressing to management.

I currently study accountancy at university, however I'm not really into that. I was wondering if there are any courses related to Railways and their operations delivered at universities, preferably closer to Glasgow.

You seem to be able to study a lot of diverse courses at uni these days, so hopefully there is something.

Thanks for your time, and I'm looking forward to reading the replies!

 

[Aictos]

Hello All,

I would quite like to get into the Transport Industry in an office based role, hopefully one day progressing to management.

I currently study accountancy at university, however I'm not really into that. I was wondering if there are any courses related to Railways and their operations delivered at universities, preferably closer to Glasgow.

You seem to be able to study a lot of diverse courses at uni these days, so hopefully there is something.

Thanks for your time, and I'm looking forward to reading the replies!

The one course that will help is Customer Service, also Newcastle and Birmingham uni's offer railway related courses if that helps?

 

[Cavan]

You can go on the tocs graduate schemes with any good degree.

 

[KT530]

http://www.railwayoperators.co.uk/learning-development/academic-courses/

 

[grumblingalong]

Get yourself any job on the railway and the coal face experience will serve you infinitely more than any course on offer, while being paid to learn! The railway is not an industry you can learn from a book.

 

[Craigster90]

I’ve tried various times to get a job with Virgin East Coast, now LNER But never get anywhere

 

[Arriva Fan]

Thanks for all your replies! I had thought about the Graduate Schemes, obviously the Arriva one was of interest, but I would rather start learning about Railways now to be honest.

There's a couple of vacancies on the ScotRail site I could apply for, and thanks for the railwayoperators.co.uk link.

Maybe it's just because I'm on mobile site, but I can't seem to find any prices for these courses. Anyone know any details about that?

 

[Cavan]

I think the iro courses are pretty expensive. Many people would try and get their employers to at least partially fund if there was a benefit to the company.

 

[whhistle]

IRO courses start at about £3000 for the Certificate going up to £9000 for Degree.
Don't know why they haven't published prices - they have done in previous years.
Whether it's worth it is questionable. Better to get an employer to part fund.

I'll see if I can find a recent flier I was sent about it.

 

[Arriva Fan]

IRO courses start at about £3000 for the Certificate going up to £9000 for Degree.
Don't know why they haven't published prices - they have done in previous years.
Whether it's worth it is questionable. Better to get an employer to part fund.

I'll see if I can find a recent flier I was sent about it.

Thank you.

Are these courses eligible for SAAS to help with funding?

 

[ComUtoR]

Have you thought about a more vocational route? The railway can be quite insular at times and will often recruit from within, there is a lot of upward mobility as well as, quite a lot of emphasis towards promotion and experience, rather than external candidates with educational qualifications.

 

[Stigy]

Get yourself any job on the railway and the coal face experience will serve you infinitely more than any course on offer, while being paid to learn! The railway is not an industry you can learn from a book.

This is becoming less and less the case these days. Unfortunately from experience most TOCs favour graduates than those who are already employed by them. Don't get me wrong, I've seen internal progression, which is very good, however most TOCs seems to be very degree orientated these days as an over all indication of an applicant's suitability for a job.

 

[whhistle]

Are these courses eligible for SAAS to help with funding?

I think so. The IRO website has a section on funding and Student Finance, including SAAS.
The only thing I have is a brochure from 2015, so a few years out of date but it'll give you a bit of a general idea:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ebi6yPcfyNl6fI-O6mb2_egJ8fldXBPJ/view?usp=sharing

If you register on the website then you may have access to this years stuff.

 

[Highlandspring]

I strongly suggest you complete your degree before trying to join the rail industry. Once you’re in it is extremely hard to get funding and/or time to continue your education - though it can be done as I have had two colleagues who have been sponsored through university by Network Rail but they had to really fight for it - and it takes much more of your time while work piles up on your desk from your full time job. Meanwhile not having a degree puts you at a distinct disadvantage when applying for middle and higher management roles. I came into the railway through a vocational training program and have held a few middle management roles but progression beyond that, at least in Network Rail, is very much degree oriented and I’ve ended up returning to the front line as a result. One of my colleagues who was studying for his degree through NR sponsorship was doing it (with his manager’s full support) so he could apply for his manager’s job when he retired; he was a very able man who knew the job inside out but he didn’t have a degree certificate so was virtually guaranteed to be rejected at the initial sift for the job.

Get as much education as you can before embarking on your career, it makes things very much easier. Even a degree in accountancy is far, far better than nothing.

 

[the_wanderer]

Is there a particular aspect of the industry or your potential career direction you want to focus on? Might be more appropriate for you to focus on that than an all-encompassing generic 'railway' degree - for example you could look at Operations Management, Customer Service, Finance, IT - it all depends on what your end goal is really.

Failing that, looking around our control currently, we have no less than six staff with Geography BSc degrees - so perhaps there's an unusual link there!

 

[Highlandspring]

Come to think of it I have worked with quite a few railwaymen with degrees in Geography!

 

[68015 (^AG)]

Come to think of it I have worked with quite a few railwaymen with degrees in Geography!

Seconded. We have at least four that I'm aware of!

 

[Harbornite]

If (and I emphasise the if) you decided to do another uni degree, try to do a sandwich one (two years of study followed by a year in industry, followed by a final year of study)