The electrical consulting engineer is probably the best job to have, the job description will state that consulting electrical engineers design, develop and maintain electrical control systems and/or components to required specifications, focusing on economy, safety, reliability, quality and sustainability. They are involved in projects from the concept and detail of the design through to implementation, testing and handover. They may also be involved in maintenance programmes. As well as technical knowledge, consulting electrical engineers need to project manage and multitask. They also need to have commercial awareness. Additional attributes, such as team leadership or management skills, are required as careers progress.
This is another part of the consulting electrical engineers job description that is in fact an advertisement, the consulting electrical engineer works in a multi-disciplinary project team, which is likely to include engineers from other specialist areas as well as architects, marketing and sales staff, manufacturers, technicians and customer service personnel. They may also work with representatives from customer organisations. Depending on the organisation, the consulting electrical engineer may be involved at every stage of design and development or may just be involved at one particular stage. The nature of the role varies according to industry or sector, but the range of activities common to many posts is likely to include the following: identifying customer requirements; designing systems and products; reading design specifications and technical drawings; researching suitable solutions and estimating costs and timescales; making models and prototypes of products using three-dimensional design software; working to British (BS), European (EN) and other standards; liaising with others in the design team; liaising with clients and contractors; attending meetings on site; designing and conducting tests; recording, analysing and interpreting test data; proposing modifications and retesting products; qualifying the final product or system; servicing and maintaining equipment; preparing product documentation, writing reports and giving presentations; monitoring a product in use to improve on future design.
From meeting many consulting electrical engineers the one thing that can be said is that they use big and long words to talk a good job and go to lots of meetings, their whole method of working is to put design responsibility onto contractors and then to stand back and criticise; which is why it is the best job to have.
Electrical consulting engineers 'write' specifications for projects with minimal drawings; it is said they write specifications what some or maybe many actually do is get contractors to write the specifications for free so that the contractor gets on the tender list whilst charging the client for preparing the specification. Contractors will admit to doing this but will never go 'public' for fear of being blacklisted. The drawings the electrical consulting engineers prepare are called tender drawings which they require tenders to be prepared against, the contract will then require the successful tenderer to prepare the working drawings which again allows the consultant to stand back and criticise. Their whole method of working increases costs and initiates disputes which allows them to charge even more for their services.