This National Apprenticeship Week, Anglian Water has announced that it is set to recruit more than 800 new apprentices by 2030, in a bid to introduce new talent as the company gears up to deliver a proposed £9 billion programme of investment between 2025 and 2030.

Apprenticeships offer young people a chance to earn while they learn: successful candidates will enjoy the benefits of full-time employment as they work towards a nationally recognised qualification. Most importantly, candidates who successfully complete their apprenticeship and objectives are guaranteed a full-time job at Anglian Water at the end of the programme.

The water company recently announced proposals for a record £9 billion programme of investment into its region’s infrastructure and environment between 2025 and 2030. In order to deliver the proposed business plan, its largest ever, Anglian Water will create 7,000 jobs to benefit people in the East of England and support more than 800 apprentices, many into green jobs.

Anglian Water offers two-year practical apprenticeships in its water and wastewater treatment teams, where successful candidates will spend 24 months training through a mixture of classroom study and on-the-job training. No two days are the same on the company’s operational frontline: apprentices will deal with everything from customer service and planned maintenance to environmental management and emergency engineering works.

The water company also offers a range of higher level and degree apprenticeships in disciplines across the business, from electrical or civil engineering to digital transformation and IT.

Alice Stockdale, Junior App Developer for Anglian Water, began her career at the company in September 2021 as a Digital Data Analyst Apprentice.

“I started my apprenticeship during lockdown, building apps in Anglian Water’s Asset Intelligence team,” Alice explains. “One of the first projects I worked on was our Health and Safety Mate app, which I built alongside my boss, Bill. Since I’ve joined the team on a permanent basis, I’ve been able to continue making progress on the app, and it’s really rewarding to see it being used across different areas of the business three years on.”

Alice’s apprenticeship was provided by the British Computer Society and was delivered in partnership with the College of West Anglia’s Wisbech campus, where she spent one day a week studying.

Working at the heart of Anglian Water’s digital transformation programme, Digital Apprentices help facilitate the delivery of business-critical information whilst being supported by digital experts across the business.

Apprentices learn how to use data analysis to provide insights into how the business operates, develop bespoke programmes and apps to help improve efficiency, and work on innovative solutions to complex problems. They are taught how to work with GIS (Arc, Hexagon, MapInfo) and SAP as well as learning to generate reports and present data to a variety of audiences for practical business use.  

“I still work in the same team as I started my apprenticeship in, so I’m now working alongside our current cohort of Digital Apprentices,” Alice continued. “It’s really rewarding to be able to support others through the same process, as well as continuing my own development in a permanent role.”

The water industry has traditionally been dominated by men, and its workforce is also an ageing one, with a third of Anglian Water’s employees due to retire within 10 years. Apprenticeships offer a valuable pipeline of fresh talent and new thinking, as well as paving the way to a fulfilling career for young people.

Anglian Water was awarded Diversity & Inclusion Initiative of the Year at the Water Industry Awards 2023 for its Strength in Diversity Initiative, which aims to help the water company’s workforce better reflect the diversity of the region it serves.

The company also nabbed the 2022/23 top spot in the ‘Energy and Utilities’ and ‘Environmental and Ethical’ categories of Job Crowd’s ‘Best Company for Apprentices to work in’ list, voted for by apprentices. Anglian Water also ranks fifth in The Job Crowd for apprenticeships in the UK overall and was the only water company named in the top five.

To find out more about the apprenticeships available at Anglian Water, visit anglianwatercareers.co.uk.