Water lab combats skills shortage
12 Feb 2015
Water firm United Utilities has invested £1.5 million in a new technical training centre located at its wastewater treatment works in Bolton.
The facility, which will be opened today by employment minister Esther McVey, is part of a company initiative to source more than 1,000 new engineers and technical employees by 2023.
Apprentices - including chemical and mechanical engineering apprentices and laboratory technicians - will have access to mechanical and electrical workshops, a laboratory and a mock sewer system.
“This includes microscopes for activated sludge testing, jar tests for coagulation/flocculation testing, sand and sieve analysis and filter maintenance
United Utilities spokesman
The laboratory features all the typical water and wastewater analysis kits used by United Utilities engineers, a company spokesman said.
“This includes microscopes for activated sludge testing, jar tests for coagulation/flocculation testing, sand and sieve analysis and filter maintenance,” the spokesman said.
“There’s [also] a spectrophotometer and a microscope fitted with a camera so we can video what happens.”
The facility, which will host roughly 70 trainees per day, will be coordinated by United Utilities’ engineers who have been up-skilled to serve as trainers.
Business services director at United Utilities Sally Cabrini said: “It’s critical that we invest in the people and the skills to run our organisation effectively in the future.
“Across the utility sector we have an ageing workforce and we’ve got to pass on their skills to the next generation before time runs out. We estimate that around half of the current workforce will have left or retired over the next decade.”
To combat this issue, the United Utilities’ apprenticeship programme, which has a new intake of 30-40 young people each year, offers permanent employment to all who successfully complete the four-year course.
Meanwhile, the utility, alongside 90 other employers, including National Grid, has formed the Energy and Efficiency Industrial Partnership (EEIP) to fill skills gap.
Over the next three years, £66 million of funding will be invested into the EEIP scheme to deliver around 70,000 new learning opportunities including apprenticeships and traineeships in the utilities sector - many of which will be run at United Utilities’ new training centre.
