We've hosted students from Henry Cort Community College in Fareham for an immersive work experience day as part of National Apprenticeship Week, highlighting a range of career opportunities at the gas distribution network.
Earlier this week, five Year 10 students aged 14 and 15 spent a morning with us at our base in Drayton, hearing from colleagues from different parts of our company about what they do, how they got into the job they do now and what they love most about it.
It’s part of our collaboration with Solent Partners, which brings together schools and businesses, giving young people first hand experiences of workplaces and the career opportunities they can offer.
During their time with us, the students spoke with one of our Emergency Gas Responders, hearing about the types of work they deal with every day before getting hands on, looking around their van and the range of equipment it carries. They spent time in our Operational Control Centre listening to calls from customers and hearing our teams despatch engineers to emergency calls.
The students also heard from Team Manager Richard Moody, who gave an overview of our gas distribution network, where gas comes from and how many calls we respond to every day. Our Stakeholder Relations team spoke to them about their work with MPs, local authorities and other organisations, highlighting how collaboration is key to our work. Students learned too about how AI is enhancing the work our Communications team do and their ability to be even more creative.
Without these kinds of opportunities, students don’t know what they don’t know. This has been a great opportunity for young people to find out about future opportunities and careers that they probably wouldn’t have thought about before visiting. Having the chance to visit SGN and find out about the apprenticeships and opportunities they offer has been fantastic, and hopefully this is just the beginning of more continued work with them as one of the largest employers in the Solent area.
Chloe Giles
Senior Enterprise and Skills Executive at Solent Partners
Taking our students to workplaces gives them the chance to witness first-hand the many job possibilities out there. It’s doesn’t just give them inspiration but a potential glimpse into their future career paths. The feedback from the students about their time at SGN has been brilliant and hopefully we may have inspired a career in engineering for these young people.
Sallie Connochie
Careers Lead at Henry Cort Community College
Helping young people to develop their careers has been so important and today we’ve been able to showcase students all the kinds of different opportunities available at SGN. They might look at SGN and think it’s only construction and working with gas but hopefully today has shown there’s so much more to the wider business. By giving them a glimpse into our business support, communications, HR and stakeholder relations teams, we’re hopefully showing that at SGN there is a potential career for everyone.
