Giles started his railway engineering career commissioning Class 91 locomotives for the East CoastMainline in 1988 after completing a degree in Electronic Systems and Control Engineering. He then worked in various design and project engineering capacities on light rail and underground projects in Manchester and London. After completing a Masters degree in Engineering Project Management in 1995 he worked as an engineering manager in the rolling stock and railway systems supply sector in America, Poland and France. In 2002, he returned to the UK to work for the Government as their European Technical Director. In this capacity he had responsibility for the UK’s European railway technical specifications for interoperability and implementation policies. He represented the UK in Europe on rail technical and safety matters and was the UK Board Member of the European Rail Agency. In 2007, Giles joined Network Rail where he developed the Train to Infrastructure Interface Specifications for Thameslink and Crossrail rolling stock procurement programmes. Before joining High Speed 2 in July 2014, Giles headed up Network Rail’s System Integration team working for the Department of Transport – technically integrating between the Thameslink rolling stock, infrastructure and franchise replacement programmes.