In camp you will use vehicles such as bull-dozers, loaders, scrapers, excavators, graders, cranes and rollers to complete tasked construction work. This can include horizontal construction projects in military bases or repairing tracks and roads for other government departments. You could be employed to support civil defence, scrub fires, road repairs and flood control.

When you aren’t tasked, you will keep practising with these vehicles in camp, and conduct combat field engineering training using the gap crossing system and combat tractors.

You are responsible for the efficient and safe operation of all the vehicles you operate, as well as daily servicing and maintenance. You will also identify and report all faults before they turn into major mechanical failures.

On deployment you may work as an individual, in a small construction team or as part of a larger unit. Your tasks will include excavation, road repair and construction, as well as quarry work. You will regularly be involved with construction aid projects overseas which will see you working alongside other nations. Plant Operators have been deployed on operations in Bosnia, Timor Leste, Iraq, Afghanistan and the Solomon Islands. Regular annual exercises enhance your skills throughout the South Pacific and in Antarctica.

A key part of the Plant Operators role on deployment is the concept of 'winning resources'. This is where Army Engineers take an existing natural or disused resources and make them usable for Army operations, such a securing quarrying material or recycling construction materials to create temporary runways or tracks.