When you join our 24-month Higher Apprenticeship Programme as a Network Outage Planning Engineer, you’ll have a mixture of formal training and education, alongside office-based experience where you will be able to put the new skills and knowledge acquired from the scheme into practice.
This role is a dynamic and varied role, requiring advanced organisation skills, customer and stakeholder management and a keen drive to take ownership and make intelligent decisions to support the delivery of National Grid’s portfolio of works.
You’ll spend your time on the programme across Aston University, studying for a Foundation Degree in Electrical Power Engineering, our National Grid Training Academy in Eakring, Nottinghamshire, completing a variety of in-house, specialist training, and our office headquarters in Warwick which will provide you with on-the-job experience for your role specific learning.
Your academic studies will take up a significant amount of your time on the programme. However, when you are in the office you will be given exposure to various departments and be encouraged to network extensively to really immerse yourself in the business. You will be tasked with completing various projects and assignments to help you develop your knowledge and skillsets in accordance with Higher Apprenticeship format and requirements.
Whilst working in our Warwick office, you will learn how our Operational Planning and Delivery Optimisation teams fit into the Electricity Transmission business, you will understand the portfolio of work each team plans and delivers across a Current Year and Multi-Year Ahead timeframe. You will receive detailed training on the processes, procedures, systems and working practices you will need to become accustom with to develop into a role in either of these departments. You will perform a fundamental role in either team, that is responsible for the successful strategic planning or in-year delivery of work through the management of Electricity System Network Outages.
You’ll also have the opportunity to spend time in between your studies and training at our Substation compounds with our Engineers and Fitters, so you can view first-hand, the work that our Operations teams deliver across the country to keep the lights on. You will have the opportunity to complete hands on experience and develop practical skills which will support your academic studies and on-the-job learning.
Once qualified you will be able to:
• Optimise the Strategic Outage Plan, ensuring correct prioritisation of works to align to business outcomes, regulatory commitments and manage any potential delivery risks.
• Lead on the Customer Interactions with regards to outage impacts and take accountability on ensuring a high level of customer satisfaction.
• Ensure all outage planning decisions are documented in the relevant systems and are communicated with reasoning to all relevant stakeholders.
• Manage and reoptimize system access changes in operational timescales, having worked in cross-functional formats with all wider business stakeholders and customers to agree solutions to plan changes.
