Time running out to honour our amazing local apprentices

The awards will recognise apprentices, and the people who support, train and employ them.

Associate Partner, Openreach, is proud to support these awards and is looking forward to presenting the Engineering/Manufacturing Apprentice of the Year award to this year’s worthy winner.

Openreach is the UK’s digital network business. They’re 30,400 people who connect homes, mobile phone masts, schools, shops, banks, hospitals, libraries, broadcasters, governmentsand businesses - large and small - to the world. And they believe in creating a workforce that is as diverse as the communities they serve.

That’s why they’ve announced plans to recruit 3,000 new trainee engineers this year, including around 40 in South Yorkshire. This is in addition to 3,500 new trainee engineers they recruited last year – part of the biggest recruitment drive in their history.

They want to attract the aspiring engineers of tomorrow from all walks of life. They are working hard to attract more women into their workforce, and last year their intake of female engineers was higher than previous years. Also, their employment of black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) people has risen nationally. There is still more to do, and they will keep striving to do even better.

They’re also investing millions of pounds in regional training centres putting practical, real-life training at the heart of their business. Their engineers might find themselves working at astreet cabinet, up a telegraph pole, down a manhole or in the customers’ premises so they’ve built mock residential streets in our training centres - complete with fully live networks - so their engineers can experience a typical working day from cabling to jointing and repairs, to working underground or overhead and installing new services inside customers’ homes.

The SCR Apprenticeship Awards, and others like them, are important because they recognise the value of apprenticeships and the positive impact they bring to businesses of all sizes. The apprentices get to earn while they learn while their employers reap the benefits of new talent, increased productivity and staff retention amongst many other things. It’s also just a great thing to celebrate a job well done.If you are a business with apprentices encourage them to apply or put them forward yourselves.

For a full list of categories and criteria to enter, simply visit the awards website www.scrapprenticeshipawards.co.uk/ before the deadline of Friday 10th May.We look forward to seeing you on the night!