Control Engineering Graduate in Bury St Edmunds

British Sugar is a home‑grown success story and one of the most efficient and competitive beet processors in the world. Around 3,500 farmers based in East Anglia and the East Midlands supply our four advanced manufacturing sites with eight million tonnes of sugar beet every year. We, in turn, make this into over 1 million tonnes of sugar, serving customers across the UK, Ireland and increasingly growing commercially in the EU and world sugar markets.

Control Engineering Graduate Programme

Duration: 2 years
Location: Bury St Edmunds
Salary: £42,000 per annum

Take control of your engineering career. Join our Control Engineering Graduate Programme and help design, configure, and maintain the automation systems that keep our factories running 24/7. You’ll work with technologies such as Distributed Control Systems, Programmable Logic Controllers, and Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition systems – the backbone of modern manufacturing.
You’ll develop technical expertise across system design, commissioning, and optimisation, supported by experienced engineers and hands‑on project work.

What You Will Be Doing

• Work with process and operations teams to understand how automation supports production.
• Assist with the design, configuration, and testing of control systems and safety systems.
• Develop and implement HMI graphics, control logic, alarms, and optimisation strategies.
• Support commissioning, start‑up, and troubleshooting activities.
• Learn about server administration, virtualisation, networking, system integration, and cybersecurity in industrial environments.
• Maintain accurate technical documentation and participate in system upgrades.

What You Will Need

• A minimum 2:1 degree (or predicted) in Control, Electrical, Electronic, Instrumentation, Automation, or a related Engineering discipline.
• An understanding of automation or control principles, and curiosity to learn how they apply in real manufacturing environments.
• Strong analytical and problem‑solving skills, with attention to detail in technical work.
• Effective communication and collaboration skills to work across engineering and operations teams.
• Flexibility to be based at and travel between any of our UK sites — Newark, Bury St Edmunds, Wissington, Cantley, or Peterborough.
• The right to work in the United Kingdom.
• Alignment with our values: staying safe, driving to action, working together, respecting each other, and being open and flexible.