Amanda Smith is flying high.
She’s building up to International Women’s Day today by speaking at a major international drone conference in Switzerland.
Amanda is representing the UK, sharing a panel with Kevin Young of the Idaho Environmental Coalition, at the sold-out event on the shores of Lake Geneva between the Jura Mountains and the Alps.
It’s a pinch-yourself moment for Amanda. A far cry from when she was a 19-year-old, working part-time in a local supermarket in West Cumbria, considering her future.
She hopes her career journey will inspire other young women to push the boundaries of what’s possible.
Amanda’s presentation at the Flyability User Conference held in Lausanne, describes how she and the team at Sellafield Ltd nuclear decommissioning site in Cumbria successfully operate drones to deliver operations safer, faster and more cost-effectively.
“The change I have seen in five years you would not believe,” said Amanda. ”We’ve taken the number of drone flights at Sellafield from one flight every six months to 200 flights a year.
“Who knows where drones could be in another five years’ time, by 2029 we could be seeing fully autonomous flights.
“I remember when I was a young girl and watching Tomorrow’s World on television and seeing these amazing robots and innovations.
“It always seemed to be the Japanese who were leading the way. So as a girl I thought these things only happened and were only possible in Japan.
“Last year we hosted a visit from Japan at Sellafield’s Engineering Centre of Excellence where they came to see us and were amazed at what we were doing.
“We are at the forefront of drone developments now and it’s super exciting,” said Amanda who would like to see a similar positive change when it comes to inspiring more women in the industry.
“I would like to see more women coming into the profession – women are still few and far between in the drone world and that needs to change
“I think we need to engage women and girls earlier in the school years, as early as primary school age, to know that they can do these types of jobs.
“You don’t need to have a degree to have a career in the drone industry. I am proof of that.
“You need to understand how things work, have a good grasp of maths, English and the sciences and be a good communicator – everything else is about attitude and a willingness to learn.”
The Swiss presentation marks a major month for Amanda.
She is also looking forward to her first meeting in Birmingham as the first female chair of the national COMIT2Drones organisation which aims to make drone technology a trusted, well-governed and essential tool for UK construction and infrastructure industries.
Amanda said: “It’s a really good community for sharing learning and supporting each other and I am looking at how we can grow that and reach into wider industries.”
Being a member of the Critical National Infrastructure Working Group for drones – which includes Network Rail, National Highways, National Grid, and Transport for London – will help Amanda achieve those aims.
Earlier in the year Amanda also presented to 200 attendees in another sector – at an offshore energy event in Aberdeen where the audience was largely from the oil and gas industries.
“People were coming up to me afterwards to discuss how we can best share knowledge and support each other. We are often fighting the same battles across different industries such as with maintenance backlogs and skills shortages, so how can we support each other better across each other’s industries?”
Drones are part of the solution, and Amanda is keen to see greater use of technologies to support people in their jobs, so it frees them up to concentrate on other tasks that
only they can do. Drones also help keep people safe. “Everything we do with drones at Sellafield is about removing people from harmful environments.”
Five years ago Amanda had never even thought about drones. She’d impressed at Sellafield and been promoted through the organisation to coach a team of planners.
But when the organisation was restructured and the role of coach disappeared she was in danger of not having an obvious home.
Craig Branney, head of off site developments, wanted to grow Sellafield’s engineering solutions programme at the time and he and his manager Mark Foster knew they wanted someone to lead a new Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) team.
“I said I don’t know anything about drones and I’ve never managed a team, but I will give it a go,” said Amanda. “They said they would review it in three months. I must have done okay as that was in 2019 and I am still waiting for the review!”
Today Amanda manages a team of equipment engineers and is also responsible for a 16-strong team of response and emergency duty drone pilots.
As a teenager she was all set to study accountancy at Newcastle University before having a u-turn. Then came a false start with business studies at Carlisle College. At least she’d found out accountancy and business weren’t for her.
She’d always been a grafter and wanted to pay her own way so, encouraged by her father who didn’t mind what she did as long as she didn’t sit at home, she took a part-time job at a Safeway supermarket to buy her time to consider her next move.
After winning a role at Sellafield there was a sign of the dizzy heights to come when she won Apprentice of The Year.
That’s an impressive feat in any organisation. But especially with an employer like Sellafield which invests significantly in apprentices every year.
Also because at that time females were very much in the minority in the nuclear industry and because, while the apprentices around her were in their late teens, Amanda was already juggling her family and her job.
“I knew I had to do well. While the lads were coming out of school and college aged 16 and 18, I was already married with a 12-month-old daughter and I was also starting to
do a college course as well as the job. I had a lot on my plate but I was determined to make a go of it.”
Look where that determination took her…
Amanda Smith’s route to the top
- Aged 19 gained A-levels in maths, economics and sociology
- Offered a place at Newcastle University to study accountancy – but didn’t take up offer
- Started a business course at Carlisle College – six weeks later decided not for her
- Part-time job in Safeway supermarket in West Cumbria while considered career options
- Joined Sellafield Ltd as a technical assistant testing instruments
- After four years put in an expression of interest to be in a redeployment talent pool – and accepted a place in the site’s Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant (THORP) testing air monitors
- Gained a place on an apprenticeship programme funded by Sellafield in Electrical and Instrumentation Engineering with Gen2, working and studying with fellow apprentices most aged 16-18
- 2006 Won Sellafield’s Apprentice of the Year Award; also won Sellafield’s Community Foundation Award for Race For Life fundraising achievements
- Worked her way up through the business at Selllafield with a range of roles in different departments
- 2019 Appointed into a newly-created post of head of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)
- 2023 September – Sellafield UAV team Highly Commended in the Engineering and Manufacturing Awards
- 2023 October – Sellafield UAV team win award in the Nuclear Manufacturing Awards
- 2024 February – Amanda named chair of COMIT2Drones
- 2024 March 6 – Presenting at Flyability international conference in Switzerland
