Openreach seeks trainee engineers across Wales
OPENREACH has announced a major expansion of its engineering workforce, with plans to recruit around 150 trainees in Wales.
In a groundbreaking approach to recruitment, potential candidates will be able to discover exactly what life as a field engineer involves with the help of virtual reality (VR).
The company is trialling a VR experience which enables interested applicants to don a headset and experience climbing a telephone pole or exploring the local exchange building in immersive 3D, from the perspective of a real engineer.
The local network business, which is part of BT Group, will be seeking recruits from across the region to fill the new, full-time and permanent roles to extend its fibre broadband network, improve customer service and keep Wales connected.
It is part of a UK-wide initiative to hire 1,500 trainee engineers over the next eight months.
Openreach expects to recruit about 150 people from Cardiff, Swansea, Aberystwyth, Wrexham, Newport, Merthyr Tydfil, Holyhead and Llandrindod Wells.
New trainees will embark on a tailored 12-month accredited learning programme – including on-the-job experience and culminating with the attainment of an externally recognised qualification for IT, software and telecoms professionals.
Economy Secretary Ken Skates said: “This is more welcome employment news and is a great chance for prospective engineers from across Wales to gain the skills needed for a long career in the industry.
“We have a proud history of supporting apprentices and trainees through to skilled work and I am delighted that Openreach has recognised this with this announcement.”
Openreach chief executive Clive Selley said: “Our customers need us to install new lines and repair our network faster than ever, and by increasing the number of people working on proactive network maintenance, we can fix more issues before people even notice them.
“We are also continuing to roll out superfast broadband services at scale and making big investments in our network to make ultrafast broadband available to up to 12 million homes by the end of 2020.
“We want to recruit the very best people to help us on that journey and our new trainee engineering roles will offer people the hands-on experience they need to succeed.”
Ynyr Roberts, Openreach’s programme director for network delivery in Wales, said: “We know from past experience that Wales is an excellent place to recruit skilled and motivated people, who make great engineers.”