Frequently asked questions
Where are you based, and how do sessions run?
I work with clients online worldwide. Sessions are normally 60 minutes (or 75 for a Strategy Session), via video call. My registered address is in West Sussex, UK, but the work itself isn't location-bound.
Coaching vs Therapy: What's the difference?
Coaching is forward-looking and goal-oriented; we work on what you want to build, decide or change. Therapy is the right call if there's significant unresolved trauma or underllying anxiety that is in the way of progress. If what you're bringing turns out to be better served by therapy, I'll tell you honestly on the first call and help you deide the best way forward. I am also a qualified therapist and can provide that kind of support if required.
How is Mentoring Different?
Coaching provides a space for you to explore your ideas, thoughts, challenges and wellbeing issues. It is an environment to formulate your own solutions with accountability to yourself.
Mentoring leverages my own life and professional experience where you feel that will help you over a particular professional challenge, whether it's "how can I lead my team to a seemingly impossible deadline?" or "I want to go for promotion; what are they looking for, and how can I make sure I stand out?", mentoring can provide the trampolone to get you over that hurdle.
Do I need to be a Senior Engineer to work with you?
No. Most of my clients are mid-career — engineers four to fifteen years in, scientists post-PhD, leaders newly into management — but I work with people across the career arc.
What's happens during the Discovery Call?
30 minutes, free, on video. We'll talk through what's actually going on for you, what you'd want to be different, and whether coaching is the right fit. There's no pitch at the end — just a clear sense of whether and how I could help. If it isn't a fit, I'll often be able to point you somewhere better.
Is it confidential?
Yes. Everything we discuss is held in confidence, with the standard limited exceptions any coach would tell you about.
How much does it cost?
Pricing varies by package and engagement length and you can see them here. For bespoke arrangements I'll quote clearly at the end of the Discovery Call before any commitment. For Team and Leadership coaching I will establish the brief with you and prepare a written quotation.
Why do you Need Me?
Of couse, everyone is different, but I regularly see three patterns; sometimes they overlap, and people often recognise more than one.
Coaching, mentoring, or a hybrid approach? Whatever your preference, I can help you get to the decisions that make the most sense to you. I wont tell you what to do - there are plenty of people in your life already that do that! I will guide you in a safe and confidential space to where you need to be in order to live your best life.
"It's too late to change"
Whether you've spent 5, 15, 30 or 40 years becoming this version of competent. Well-paid, well-respected, but quietly stuck. You've been thinking about a different chapter for years. What keeps you in place is rarely love for the work — it's the weight of the investment, the salary that would be hard to replace, the sense that walking away from this much expertise would be a kind of waste.
This is the trap with the most expensive false floor in technical careers. The version of staying that feels safe usually isn't, on a long enough timeline. The version of changing that feels reckless usually isn't, on a careful enough plan.
The work, in this case, is mostly about separating the real constraints from the imagined ones — and figuring out what an actual move toward what's next would look like.
If you want to start with something concrete, go my Freebies section and try the Engineer's Career Decision Workbook -this walks through eight structured questions for exactly this — or my easy-read article here might help you explore this further.
Wondering about going it alone?
You're considering contracting, going freelance, becoming a consultant, NED, starting your own company? The technical capability is there — you've been doing the real work long enough to know you can do it. What you don't yet have is the experience of running yourself as the business: pricing, pipeline, financial cushion, and (often the harder part) the identity shift from employee to owner.
A surprising amount of why people stall on this isn't financial or strategic — it's psychological. Performing in employment for years trains a different relationship with risk, time and self-direction than self-employment requires.
The work, in this case, is mostly about both halves — the practical 'how' of building the business, and the inner shift that needs to happen.
If this is where you are, a free, confidential discovery call is the easiest place to talk through what your first move should be.
You've started to see the signs..
Burnout in technical careers isn't unusual anymore.
You're a long way from a clinical breakdown. But the mornings are a little harder than they used to be. Sundays feel heavier. You wake up at 3am with a specific worry about a specific meeting. The work that used to give you energy is starting to take it instead.
Recent surveys put numbers to what most engineers and scientists already half-suspect:
Most of the engineers and scientists I work with have been quietly absorbing the early signs for a long time before they did anything about them — usually because the signs felt ambiguous and doing something about them felt like failure.
Coaching, in the work I do, is about recognising those signals early. If you are worries about burnout, you can take ,my free 20 minute questionnaire here. To read more about those staistics read my article here.
65% of engineers had a burnout event in the last 12 months
The figure rises to 85% for senior engineers and managers