Proud to be Recognized as a Top 100 Apprenticeship Employer

CH2M, now Jacobs, has been named a Top 100 Apprenticeship Employer 2017 in England. Now in its 14th year, the awards showcase the successes and benefits of apprenticeships across the country – from businesses growing their talent pool to apprentices making a significant contribution in their workplace.

Jacobs is training more than 140 apprentices in the U.K. at any one time, to become engineers, designers, construction and project control technicians, transport planners, and more. The Apprenticeship Program is relevant, valuable and career building for the apprentice, providing the skill set to really establish their career.

“At Jacobs we bring unique expertise and technical reach-back from our global business to solve our clients’ local challenges,” said Jacobs Buildings and Infrastructure Senior Vice President and General Manager  Europe Donald Morrison. “Developing and fostering a diverse talent pipeline underpins the way we work and our apprentices, technicians and graduates are an essential part of our sustainability of great people with important skills – both as a global business and across the industry. The legacy of this will be really powerful in 10-15 years’ time.”

Working closely with the Technician Apprenticeship Consortium (TAC) for several years (the former Halcrow business was also a founding member), Jacobs has led and been involved in the development of apprenticeship standards and the Trailblazer program offering various training routes into engineering and other disciplines.

“Over a three-year program, we guide our UK and Ireland apprentices to professional registration through practical, ‘on-the-job’ development, fully supported by mentors from day one,” explained Jacobs Director of Learning and Development Sally Fern. “Our apprentices are integrated into our business, undertaking structured learning through a mixture of formal classroom, workshop, office and site placements involving assignment, rotation and growth.

“There are a lot of interesting innovations and fantastic project opportunities for our apprentices to get involved with. They contribute within multi-disciplinary teams to build meaningful skills enabling them to take up junior positions in project teams once they complete their Apprenticeship. We also offer post Apprenticeship routes to Higher Education.”

“I have had tremendous opportunity to get really involved early in my career,” said Jacobs Apprentice Bianca Wheeler.  “We help mentor newer cohorts of apprentices to help them transition to the working environment and manage their studies. We also get actively involved with our STEM program and local school activities, arranging events through organizations like the Institution of Civil Engineers, cross-project forums involving our Small/Medium Enterprise (SME) apprentices, and coordinating our work experience program with local schools. This is great for building our own management, organization and communication skills.”

As a Year of Engineering partner with the UK Government’s campaign to celebrate the world and wonder of engineering, Jacobs is working with schools, colleges, museums and others to showcase the variety of opportunity available. If you want to know more about engineering, or see what’s happening near you, visit yearofengineering.gov.uk or search #YoE on Twitter.