Routes into Rail

Ask most people what a career in rail looks like, and they’ll probably picture a train driver, a signalling engineer or someone in a hi-vis jacket doing maintenance on a track.

It’s an image that has barely shifted in decades, and it’s a misleading one that’s costing the industry its next generation of talent.

The truth is that rail is one of the most diverse career ecosystems in the UK.

Lawyers, graphic designers, data scientists, customer experience strategists, marketers, software developers, the list goes on. If there’s a field you’re passionate about, there’s almost certainly a route into rail through it.

The rail workforce is one in real need of younger talent. NSAR research shows that a third of the rail workforce is aged 50 and over and up to 70,000 workers risk leaving through retirement or attrition by 2030.

Research suggests 26% of children as young as 13 begin forming serious ideas about their future careers. By the time they’re choosing A-levels, many pathways already feel fixed. That’s a narrow window – and right now, rail simply isn’t filling it.

One of the persistent myths about rail is that it’s primarily a technical industry, heavy on engineering and operations and light on everything else.

But stop to think about what it takes to run a modern rail network.

You need software engineers building the ticketing systems customers use each day, data analysts interpreting passenger behaviour to improve services, sales, marketers and communications professionals telling the industry’s story and helping people to buy rail journeys.
Customer experience designers rethinking what a seamless journey looks like, lawyers navigating contracts and regulation, HR teams building inclusive workplaces.

There’s more too – such as brilliant engineers, operations specialists and infrastructure experts who keep the trains running.
The point isn’t that it no longer needs technical expertise. It’s that rail is a whole vibrant economy of its own – and young people deserve to know that.

Routes into Rail bridges that gap by explaining what a day in the life of a rail data analyst looks like, what problems a signalling engineer is solving and what a graduate in communications can achieve in their first year at a transport technology company.
For those drawn to creativity, design, or communication, the industry’s growing focus on customer experience, digital transformation and brand is creating entirely new career spaces.

Rail is also an infrastructure. It’s how people get to work, to education, to visit family. It connects communities and underpins social mobility in ways that rarely get talked about.

Routes into Rail is designed to open doors by showing young people, particularly those at that pivotal 14-to-16-year-old crossroads, that rail isn’t a closed shop for a particular type of person. It’s a vibrant, growing industry that needs people who think differently.

By the time this project is complete, Magellan will have contributed the equivalent of £250,000 in skills, time, and technology to build something that will serve the young people this industry needs to attract.

We did it because we believe in it. The story we’re telling about accessible careers, about the breadth of opportunity in rail and about investing in the next generation is one the whole industry needs to hear – and repeat.