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Graduate Development Programme: automated storage systems installation engineering

Automated warehouses run on steel structures built to a millimetre or two over hundreds of metres. The engineer who sets out, measures and proves that structure before the machines are allowed on it is one of the scarcest people in the industry. This programme trains that engineer. Eighteen months, three stages, a specialist role at the end.

Apply How it works

Up to 12 placesA year, twelve is the maximum for an intake. Stage 1 from 1 November 2026 in Romania; UK placement from 1 February 2027. Intakes repeat on the same dates each year.
18 monthsMinimum. Three stages: at home, twelve months in the UK, back home into the role.
12 monthsOn live automated projects in the UK with Storage Systems Installation Ltd, in four phases.
1 roleAutomated Systems Installation Engineer with Storage Solution ProfInstal SRL at the end.
EQF 6Entry for engineering graduates; a documented route for technical diploma holders with two years' experience.
£27,300UK salary during the placement, not less than this a year, overtime paid in addition. Visa fee, health surcharge and flights paid by SSI.

Who it is for

Engineering graduates, civil, structural, mechanical, industrial, mechatronic or manufacturing, with a bachelor's degree or higher awarded in the last five years, who want a specialist career in automation installation engineering and are prepared to earn it on live projects.

It is a graduate engineering programme. It is not a route for experienced installers and it is not a way of filling vacancies.

The exception route

In several European systems the practical engineering route runs through post-secondary technical education rather than a university degree. A candidate with a technical diploma at EQF level 5 in an engineering discipline, a Romanian școală postliceală technician diploma for example, and at least two years of relevant engineering experience, setting-out, survey, structural or mechanical installation, quality or technical office work, may be admitted by exception after a technical interview. Exceptions are expected to be few, and are reviewed every year against how the engineers they produced turned out.

What it leads to

The role of Automated Systems Installation Engineer with Storage Solution ProfInstal SRL. A specialist engineering position that does not exist at operative level and is not taught in any national qualification. The engineer in that role is responsible for:

Survey control, setting-out and geometric verification of automated storage structures
Ownership of the measurement protocol and its acceptance by the automation supplier
Investigation of the structural causes of machine faults and specification of remedial work
Engineering input to installation method statements, build sequences and lift planning
Technical supervision of installation teams on geometry and tolerance

It is the role the programme's technical lead performs himself. The programme exists to reproduce that career.

Three stages

Stage 1, at home with Storage Solution ProfInstal SRL. At least three months.
Induction to the group, its projects and the automated storage sector. Engineering drawings and documentation for storage structures; manufacturers' assembly manuals and tolerance schedules. Survey and measurement fundamentals: levelling, setting out, instrument principles, measurement error. Health and safety foundation for UK sites. Working English for site documentation. Ends with a review and a written recommendation for the UK placement.
Stage 2, twelve months in the UK with Storage Systems Installation Ltd
A graduate engineering placement on live automated projects, in four phases, below. Reporting to the Programme Technical Lead, who is also the day-to-day site mentor. Based at Hinckley and on SSI's own installation contracts at client sites across the UK.
Stage 3, back with ProfInstal SRL. At least three months.
Into the engineer role under a consolidation plan agreed at the final review: first responsibility for setting-out and verification on a project of ProfInstal's, with remote support from the UK team, and a review six months after return.

The four UK phases

Phase 1 · months 1 to 2
Site compliance and documentation
Hinckley training room and yard, then the first live project. Induction, site cards, the core safety modules. Drawings and tolerance schedules taught against two suppliers' documentation. Instrument theory and field checks on the yard measurement rig. Shadowing the Programme Technical Lead through a pre-start survey, datum establishment and the first braced block. Output: a written documentation review of one live project.
Phase 2 · months 3 to 6
Measurement and verification engineering
Live automated projects. Establish datums and grids; use survey instruments to millimetre tolerance; understand erection, stabilisation and rail alignment from the inside; verify geometry; keep the measurement protocol. One pathway, shuttle-based or crane-served, matched to the project. Weekly engineering log. Output: the complete measurement protocol for at least one aisle or lane as measuring engineer; at least one non-conformity raised, investigated and closed.
Phase 3 · months 7 to 9
Survey control and fault investigation
Responsibility, under supervision, for the survey control and geometric verification of a zone. Leading the measurement protocol for a zone and presenting it to the automation supplier's engineer. Investigating a reported machine fault back to its structural cause. Contributing to the detailed installation method statement. Commissioning support at first machine trials. Output: a signed verification pack for a zone, accepted by the supplier; a fault investigation report another engineer could act on.
Phase 4 · months 10 to 12
Sequence planning and capstone
Operating at the level of the destination role, supervised rather than directed. Build-sequence planning for a block. Engineering input to lift planning with the appointed person. Assembling and presenting the quality handover pack for a block. Delivering knowledge sessions to new operatives under the lead trainer's observation. The capstone project. Output: capstone report and presentation; completed competence portfolio; completion certificate.

How you are assessed

A weekly engineering log reviewed and signed by your site mentor. A monthly one-to-one with the Lead Trainer on progress, welfare and anything practical. A formal progression review every quarter, chaired by the Programme Technical Lead, with your self-assessment, the evidence reviewed, the decision recorded and the next quarter planned. A final review in week fifty with ProfInstal present, where the capstone is presented and the return is agreed.

Competence evidence is assessed under our ASRS Specialist Worker qualification. The capstone is an engineering project of real use to the group, agreed at the second quarterly review: a comparison of two suppliers' tolerance regimes, a survey-control method for a building type, a fault investigation written up as a case study, a build-sequence optimisation for a real block.

On completion: a certificate of completion of the UK placement, a unit transcript for the qualification units achieved, and the capstone assessment. The certificate says what it is: a company qualification, not a regulated one.

Progression milestones

End of Stage 1
Read a project documentation set and explain its governing requirements.
End of Phase 1
Work on a UK automated project as an engineering observer and recorder.
End of Phase 2
Measure and record a zone to protocol; raise and close a non-conformity.
End of Phase 3
Hold survey control for a zone and present verification to the supplier; investigate a fault.
End of Phase 4
Plan a block's sequence; contribute to lift and method planning; mentor others.
Six months after return
Hold the destination role independently.

Who runs it

The programme is owned by Storage Solution ProfInstal SRL (Trade Register J2019000117162, CUI 40410905), which recruits and employs the trainees, delivers Stage 1 and provides the destination role. The UK placement is hosted by Storage Systems Installation Ltd (Companies House 12447006), the group's UK company, which installs automated and conventional storage structures for automation suppliers and end clients across the United Kingdom. The two companies are under common ownership.

Storage Systems Installation Ltd is a CITB-registered employer, is listed on the UK Register of Learning Providers (UKPRN 10102630), runs its own in-house training and assessment scheme under a written training policy suite, and has authored the qualification specification the programme assesses against.

The programme is led by its Programme Technical Lead, a civil engineer, BEng (Hons), with more than a decade of hands-on automated systems installation across Europe, the career the programme is designed to reproduce. He supervises Stage 1 and is the trainee's day-to-day mentor on site in the UK. The Lead Trainer at Storage Systems Installation Ltd, who holds teaching and train-the-trainer qualifications alongside the NEBOSH General Certificate, manages the programme and its records.

How it is paid for

Storage Systems Installation Ltd pays the CITB levy like every construction employer its size, claims the grants it exists to fund, cards, plant tickets, first aid, supervisor courses, and puts them back into cards, courses and qualifications for its own installers. No one at the company pays for their own card, and the training runs whether or not a project is paying for it that month.

The graduate placement is funded the same way. You are paid a UK salary throughout, not less than £27,300 a year with overtime in addition. The company pays your visa application fee, the Immigration Health Surcharge and your flights both ways, and nothing in the programme is charged to you or recovered from you. Accommodation in the UK you arrange and pay for yourself from your salary; we help you find it before you arrive, together with banking and registration with a doctor.

What you need to know

The UK placement is a fixed twelve months. It is a stage in a career with the group, not a route to living in the UK.
You must have worked with ProfInstal SRL for at least three continuous months before the UK placement, without work trips to the UK in that period, and you remain its employee throughout the programme.
During the placement you are employed and paid in the UK by Storage Systems Installation Ltd, under a UK contract of employment, and you work only on its own installation contracts under its supervision.
You arrange and pay for your own accommodation in the UK from your salary; we help you find it before you arrive.
Up to twelve places a year; twelve is the maximum we take in one intake, so a trainer can work with every graduate individually. If a group has not formed for an intake, we either defer it to the next year or take a single successful candidate on an individual plan.
Working English to at least B1 is required for safety on site; it is assessed at interview. Technical training is also available in Romanian. UK site documentation is in English.
Medically fit for work at height and from mobile elevating work platforms, and able to obtain the site cards the placement requires.
You intend to complete all three stages and take up the role at the end.

How to apply

Applications for the first intake, Stage 1 from 1 November 2026 and UK placement from 1 February 2027, are open now; later applications are considered for the following intake. Send a CV and a copy of your degree or diploma to Storage Solution ProfInstal SRL, Str. Podișorului nr. 90, Întorsura, Județul Dolj, Romania, by email to contact@rack-install.com or by telephone on +40 768 964 013, or use the form and pick "a graduate applying for the development programme". We reply to every application.

Apply for the programme

Part of SSI training, alongside the workforce modules and the ASRS Specialist Worker qualification.