With the British economy still in the grips of recession and with youth unemployment at an all time high, Scottish Power and its supply chain has delivered a major boost to jobs with the creation of 76 new apprenticeships in overhead lines, cable jointing and substation electrical fitting.
With a need to recruit in excess of 180,000 new people by 2025, demand for skilled workers is set continue to across the energy and utility sectors. Doing nothing to address this issue is not an option. This new programme of Power Apprenticeships will pave the way for other employers to join force and invest in skills to satisfy this increased demand.
Taking a collaborative approach to addressing the skills shortage, Scottish Power and its supply chain, facilitated by Energy & Utility Skills’ Talent Bank recruitment and training solution, has created a mechanism to help them invest in more apprenticeships to support workforce growth and development.
These new Apprenticeships will offer trainees real scope for career development, offering practical work-based learning across a number of employers including Enterprise, Power Team, ENS, Freedom and Grosvenor Power.
At a time when the sector needs to replace an ageing workforce with new talent, through increased investment in skills and training, Scottish Power is leading the way in opening up opportunities for young people.
All 76 apprentices will undergo an intensive training programme combining practical hands on experience and formal training, delivered by Manchester-based Utility and Construction Training (UTC). The UCT facility provides a combination of state of the art equipment as well as life size overhead poles and lines, providing trainees with a real insight into working at heights.
Playing a major part in the success of this new programme of apprenticeships, the EU Skills’ Talent Bank solution has not only supported the recruitment and attraction of trainees to the programme, it will continue to deliver ongoing support through its Talent Bank Learner Managers, offering a combination of high quality pastoral care and support to trainees throughout the apprenticeship programme. The Learner Managers will co-ordinate the overall scheme and manage the training provider contracts, freeing-up employers to focus on service deliver.
Speaking of the significance of employer collaboration, Scottish Power’s Stephen Kelly commented, “Scottish Power have a range of programmes to support attraction of new talent to our industry. We are modernising our highly regarded graduate and apprenticeships schemes and in parallel adding a new portfolio of schemes including conversion or re-training and higher skills apprenticeships. The size and scale of the challenge facing the industry as a whole means that we need to work more collaboratively in this area with our supply chain than we have before. We cannot recruit and train the future workforce in isolation. Talent Bank is an innovative and critical approach to working together. It will help ensure we have the right people to develop our capabilities, replace our aging workforce and deliver our huge infrastructure investment programme.”
Commenting on this new wave of employer collaboration, Neil Robertson, EU Skills Chief Executive said, “Encouraging employers to collaborate and share economies of scale presents real scope for our sector. Having identified the sheer scale of the skills issue within the power sector, we’ve brokered relationships and are delighted that we have a number of high profile businesses working together to address the needs of the sector whilst giving real career opportunities to young people.”
Most of the apprentices have already commenced their training with many now working out on-site with employers.
