At ScottishPower, we are working hard to address the future skills shortage across our businesses by promoting the power industry to people of all ages and encouraging them to consider a career in Engineering as an exciting and valued choice.
My role as the Sector Attractiveness co-ordinator centres on a calendar of events and workshops designed specifically to promote STEM subjects (Science Technology Engineering and Maths) and promote our Industry as a fantastic career prospect.
I work with a team of ScottishPower STEM Ambassadors who use their expertise and enthusiasm to inspire young people and demonstrate the endless opportunities in Energy. All of our current Engineering graduates and apprentices in the UK are trained STEM Ambassadors and I coordinate our team to attend a number of unique events up and down the country – some with Royal connections!
Earlier this year, HRH the Duke of Rothesay, Prince of Wales, hosted a workshop entitled Engineering your STEM future with support from ScottishPower. The event brought together over 140 school head teachers and key influencers to better understand what organisations can do to help spread the message to secondary students that taking Science subjects at school is a positive choice leading to great career opportunities.
We also had over 20 ScottishPower STEM ambassadors attend this year’s Grangemouth Science Fair which attracted over 1700 Primary 7 children from 54 schools across Scotland. The event is designed to promote science, engineering and technological subjects through investigation and team work, with pupils taking on the roles of engineers and scientists for the day. The ScottishPower workshop also gives children the chance to get hands-on experience of building circuits and testing conductivity as well as designing their own wind turbine and making their own batteries!
Throughout the year, we host a number of taster days at our training centres where schoolchildren with an interest in Engineering can come along and learn about the various school-leaver, apprentice and graduate programmes that we offer here at ScottishPower.
I also had lots of great events, including The Big Bang launched in Scotland on the 14th of June. It’s the UK’s young scientists and engineers fair. I was there with the team of STEM ambassadors looking out for future talent and showing our young people the range of opportunities that exist in power!
