What does a groundworker do?
You dig the holes and lay the drains everything else depends on, and the two things that can kill you are collapse and what is already buried.
Also called: civils operative, drainage operative, excavation worker.
A day looks like
- 1You scan and hand-dig before a machine bucket goes anywhere near a marked service.
- 2You put the trench support in as you go down, not once you are at the bottom.
- 3You lay drainage to a fall you can measure, because a level drain does not run.
- 4You backfill in layers and compact each one, which nobody will ever see and everything above depends on.
Hardest part
A trench collapse gives no warning and a cubic metre of soil weighs well over a tonne. The ground looks completely stable right up until it is not, and the temptation to drop in unsupported for two minutes never stops being there.
Best part
A drainage run that tests first time, at the right fall, with everything where the drawing said it would be.
How you actually become a groundworker
- At schoolNo qualifications. Fitness, and a site safety card.
- TrainingCSCS card, plus tickets for excavators, dumpers and confined spaces as you go.
- How longWeeks to be useful, a few years to set out and run a drainage gang.
- Your first jobGroundworker labourer.
Frequently asked questions
- Why are trenches so dangerous?
- Because soil is far heavier than people expect and collapses happen without warning. Fatalities occur in trenches little over a metre deep — being buried to the chest is enough to stop you breathing.
- How do you know what is buried before you dig?
- Utility drawings plus a cable avoidance tool, and then hand-digging to expose anything found. Drawings are frequently wrong, which is why scanning and hand-digging are both required rather than either on its own.
- Why does drainage need a specific fall?
- Too shallow and solids settle out and block it; too steep and the water runs away leaving the solids behind. There is a designed range, and getting it right while the trench is open is the only cheap moment.
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