Wessex Water is the country’s leading water and sewerage company for customer service and environmental performance, serving 2.8 million customers across the area.
Our apprenticeship strategy is led by the business need to secure economic growth and encourage the next generation into our excellent careers. In an ever-growing business, the wider Wessex Water group is diversifying into other ventures. It is essential to develop our talent and consider our succession planning. We have identified apprenticeships as a key route to recruit, train and develop talent. We have around 200 apprentices within the business group.

We want our apprentices to reflect our community, and we strive to introduce innovative approaches to recruitment, training and inclusion. Our inventive recruitment process allows for social mobility, a driving agenda for the business. As part of our recruitment promotions, we visit a variety of places from schools to job centres, pupil referral units and young offender institutions – we want to ensure everyone can apply. Over the last three years we have seen a significant increase in the demographics of apprentices within the business, creating a business wide appetite for life-long learning.
There are many apprenticeship programmes run throughout the company; ranging from Level 2 Water Networks to the Quantity Surveying Degree Apprenticeship. Over half of our apprentices are new to the business, while the remainder are existing staff using the apprenticeship learning approach to develop skills and knowledge and further their careers.
The success of our apprenticeship programmes is largely down to the efforts of the apprentices themselves and our apprentice mentors, who are the unsung heroes. Without the support of the experienced workforce our apprentices wouldn’t develop and achieve in the way they do. Due to the support within the business we have a long and strong apprenticeship history, contributing to an exciting future.