Nicolas Bacos, 27, discovered power engineering during his first year at the Institut national des sciences appliquées engineering school in Strasbourg. “The variety of jobs and the option to work anywhere in the world appealed to me.” He carried out his final-year internship at VINCI Facilities in Mannheim, south-western Germany, before being offered a job in the Group, still in Germany, as HVAC assistant project manager for the construction of a large school complex in Cologne. “That was my first experience of a worksite,” he says. “I learnt a lot about the world of work. My boss, the building services manager, was always there to support me. That helped boost my confidence.”

Back in Mannheim after a spell at Lagrange, a VINCI Energies business unit specialising in the installation of heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems, he was appointed HVAC project manager within a VINCI Facilities development team in March 2023. “It’s the role I was aiming for. Together with 12 or so other people, I work on public-private partnership (PPP) contracts. I like this kind of teamwork involving all trades; you can see the tangible impact of it at the end.” So what comes next? “I might be in Germany or elsewhere: that’s the advantage of big international groups.”