New Career in the Pipeline for North Youngsters

A new career is in the pipeline for 15 young people from across Yorkshire, Humber and the North East who beat stiff competition to land vital jobs as gas mains apprentices.

More than 300 people applied for United Utilities’ region-wide apprenticeship scheme which is now in its third year.

Six youngsters from the North East, and nine from Yorkshire and Humber make up the newest batch of apprentices taken on this year.

United Utilities looks after the region’s gas mains system on behalf of Northern Gas Networks. It employs around 1,200 staff in the North, plus hundreds of contractors, and has depots in North Tyneside, Sunderland, Bishop Auckland, Middlesbrough, Carlisle and Workington.

Twelve of the new recruits will train as emergency engineers whose job is rapidly-responding to reports of gas leaks. A further two will learn the job of replacing and repairing gas mains and one will specialise in the highly technical job of electrical and instrumentation engineering.

Engineering operations manager Peter Christie, who himself joined the business as an apprentice almost 30 years ago, said the company’s gas mains apprenticeship scheme, now in its third year is re-vitalising the gas industry.

“The apprentices we have appointed in the last two years have been a tremendous asset to the business. We have now got 45 young people going through our apprenticeship programme and we are looking forward to getting to know our new recruits. They’ll do really well, this is a great industry and they’ll have a lot of opportunities. As well as running the gas emergency service we also replace around 550km of gas mains for Northern Gas Networks every year.”

After three years of on-the-job and classroom study the apprentices will get an NVQ level three in gas network engineering.