We've just welcomed a large intake of new starts at our Training Centre in Thatcham. These new team members will strengthen the service we offer to our customers and communities in our central southern England licence area, where we serve more than 3 million homes and businesses.
We're rapidly expanding our workforce in this phase of unparalleled investment in central southern England’s electricity distribution network. Last year, we spent more half a billion pounds investing in the networks in our two licence areas; this was a 20% increase on the previous year, and we expect continued growth in the coming years.
ABOVE: The group of new starts at the welcome event in SSEN's Thatcham Training Centre.
At a welcome event at the Thatcham Training Centre, a cohort of 44 apprentices, trainee engineers, arborists, and digital learners began their careers with us. They’ll be joined later in September by a number of graduates, who are also joining the company to lend their skills to SSEN’s ambitious delivery plans.
Even before these new starts joined, the number of craft apprentices in post had already seen huge growth over the past few years; whereas seven joined in 2020, a total of 33 joined last year. The number of trainee engineers is also growing significantly, with a total of 48 now in work.
As this latest intake complete their apprenticeships, they’ll assume roles keeping customers connected and helping to develop the network.
Welcoming this large intake of new people to SSEN is a cornerstone of the our current recruitment strategy and its development of a workforce planning strategy to address skills gaps in the wider market. Focusing on upskilling existing colleagues to create opportunities for new entrants, this approach is growing the careers of the existing workforce, while creating jobs for apprentices and adult learners in the communities we serve.
SSEN’s Director of Operations for central southern England Eliane Algaard, says:
“It's a great moment for us to welcome this latest intake of apprentices and trainees through the doors of our training school. They’ll be following in the footsteps of many of our valued colleagues who took the same path in their career some years ago and have gone on become the people who shape our organisation.
“SSEN’s journey to building a net zero network and helping our communities to achieve their low-carbon technology goals can only come through the skillset and hard work of our teams, and it’s a pleasure to welcome the engineers, managers and mentors of the future on board, on this big day in their careers.”