Engineer Training Programme

Working in National Grid's substations on a range of  high voltage electrical equipment - including circuit breakers and transformers - you'll become an expert in the sophisticated engineering systems which play an essential role in "keeping the lights on", and to meet demands of new sustainable sources of generation to connect onto the National Grid. 

Once qualified as a Substation Electrical Engineer, you'll be able to work on our extensive network of substations, responsible for the continued safe and reliable operation of the electricity transmission network through the efficient maintenance of substation assets.

These opportunities exist at substation locations across England and Wales. Substations, which operate between 132kV - 275kV - 400kV are connected via an overhead line transmission system. Each substation has a range of high voltage electrical equipment which you will become familiar with - circuit breakers, transformers, disconnectors, compressors, auxiliary supply systems etc. The entire transmission system is monitored and protected by an integrated control system, which you will specialise in as a Substation Electrical Engineer trainee. On completion of your engineer training programme you will go on to be involved in safely setting maintenance teams to work, and progress onto the commissioning of new equipment as it is installed within the substation locations in your area.

The focus is on planned maintenance and commissioning activities, but you may also be called to manage emergency equipment failures.

Locations on offer:

Aberthaw, Glamorgan, Near Barry

Barking, London

Brinsworth, Rotherham

Capenhurst, Ellesmere Port, Near Chester

Daines, Carrington Near Urmaston, Manchester

Eggborough, Selby, North Yorkshire

Elstree, Watford

Heysham, Morecambe, Lancashire

Iron Acton, Bristol

Keadby, Scunthorpe

Lackenby, Eston, Middlesborough, Cleveland

Pelham, Nr Bishops Stortford

Penn, Wolverhampton

Pentir, Nr Bangor, North Wales

Rayleigh, Rawreth, Wickford, Essex

Sundon, Luton

Taunton, Bridgewater, Somerset

Tottenham, London

Walpole, Kings Lynn, Near Wisbech

West Weybridge, Staines, Slough

Willesden, London

National Grid operate and maintain approximately 14,000 kilometres of 400 / 275 kV overhead lines strung on 22,000 towers - these transmit electricity around the UK to ensure power is available when you flick a light switch. We have a team of engineers who ensure the overhead lines and towers are working as they should be, that can involved climbing up the towers to check the lines at attached safely - to working on a live line suspended from a helicopter!

The Engineer Training Programme will give you all the knowledge you need to manage and maintain our overhead line assets. This work may involve responding to emergency faults (i.e. if a tree breaks an overhead line),  assessing the condition of the lines by climbing up the towers or from above using a helicopter to inspect the lines, so you'll need to be happy with working at heights. You could also be involved in the management of our national contracts for services such as tower painting and vegetation control.

Here, you’ll be involved in the maintenance and ongoing replacement of our overhead power lines and substations – which involve large construction projects.  The primary function of Electricity Construction is to ensure that the investments National Grid is making in the new Substations and Overhead Lines is delivered in a safe, efficient and cost effective manner.

One you complete the 2-year programme you’ll become a Development Engineer or a Project Manager either in the Overhead Line Team or Substation Team of Electricity Construction. Working in the Overhead Line Team means you’ll be managing anything from a new 400,000 volt overhead line construction, which includes building new towers (pylons) and ‘stringing’ conductors, to a refurbishment project, which include replacing old conductors to putting new parts onto a tower to strengthen it.

As a Substation Project Manager, you will be managing anything from a Supergrid transformer replacement, which includes system outages (turning the power off), through to a complete new substation build, which may be in a ‘green field’ location, including major civil preparation, structural works and high voltage connections into the system.

As a Development Engineer you will take a conceptual design, which may be the requirement to replace ageing assets (e.g. replace an old substation) or to provide a brand new connection into the system (e.g. a new hospital has been built so requires an electricity supply) and work through potential solutions to determine the most efficient proposal, you will consider what the final design will need to look like, how long it will take to build and connect into the system, how much it will cost, etc. and package this for subsequent approval.

At our HQ in Warwick, you'll be involved in investigating the systems, designing and recommending solutions to faults, ensuring the money we invest in the system is spent as wisely as possible

The electricity we all depend upon flows from power stations to consumers through a sophisticated network of complex high voltage equipment, which we call the electricity ‘transmission system’. That system has been around for many years, but it needs continual renewal if it is to remain reliable and to meet the nation’s changing energy needs. This task requires a pool of highly skilled engineers to make this happen, and that is where you come in!

These engineers are involved in investigating the systems, designing and recommending solutions to faults, planning the work and making sure the system is safe for our field engineers to work on.  Our power system design team are based at Warwick and provide the vital engineering expertise to decide our investment programme.

We want you to join us to become a talented engineer and help provide these services in what is arguably the most important company in the UK. In doing so you could be doing one of these key roles:

• Examining the best ways to fix or replace our old equipment that is getting close to the end of its life.
• Investigating the different faults on our equipment, finding out what went wrong with it and recommending how to prevent it from maybe happening again to ensure it is as safe as possible.

This role offers great variety and exciting challenges. No day within Work Planning is ever the same and you'll be given the opportunity to interact with many parts of the business on a range of tasks. This team is responsible for the planning, prioritisation and optimisation of all work activity (i.e maintenance and construction) on the electricity transmission system in the current year.

The team has to:

• Agree High Voltage circuit outages with our Control Centre (i.e. they turn the power off so it is safe to work on)
• Schedule time with the field force team (i.e. The Substations and Overhead Lines teams) to deliver the planned work when the outage is happening.
• Identify who are the right people with the right skills in the right place and at the right time.
• Monitoring all the work that has been completed, and then re-plan any work not completed (i.e. if there is a thunder storm our field force cannot work on the system.)

This task requires a pool of highly skilled engineers to make this happen, and this is where you fit in. As a planning team member you will be focused on the continual optimisation of the work plans to ensure the deliver of a safe, reliable and efficient transmission network.

You will work in a dynamic environment, assessing and formulating work plans, understanding and discussing issues with other relevant parts of the business including close liaison with the Managers and Engineers responsible for the teams that deliver the work.

You will also be adapting the plans to fit changes in circumstances – sometimes at very short notice. Our work planning team is based at Warwick, some of the planning tasks are undertaken in the office environment, whilst others are undertaken whilst visiting our operational sites to discuss and finalise work plans with the work Delivery Managers and work Delivery Engineers.

This team is focused around the Electricity National Control Centre in Berkshire. It is responsible for operating Great Britain’s electricity transmission network – planning and managing its live operation – they keep things running smoothly 24/7 days a year.

On finishing the two-year Trainee Engineer Programme, you will take up a post that will lead either to a role in Power System Planning or part of the Power System Control team.

In both of these roles, you will be using your newly acquired power systems knowledge to ensure the most secure and economic operation of the network. These are crucial jobs and because lights stay on 24/7, 365 days a year, the live Control role involves shift work. Liaising with internal departments and external stakeholders, such as Distribution Network Operators and Generators, your influence will be felt across the whole country.

As a Control Engineer, you could be on one of the transmission despatch desks where you’ll switch on/off the transmission system to allow the team on site to safely work on the system. Or you could work within energy scheduling where you’ll produce accurate operating programmes aimed at matching National Grid’s demand forecast with the supply data coming from the electricity generators.

As a Planning Engineer you’ll be optimising long term plans and looking at future developments across the UK to ensure our operational plan is as effective as possible and adapt the plan for any changes we encounter.
They are both exciting opportunities which give you a real insight into how we keep the country running!

When you are working with electricity safety is of paramount importance. Working in Safety Management you will be controlling and co-ordinating safety activities on the National Grid High Voltage (HV) Electrical Transmission system, to ensure that work on HV Transmission assets can take place without danger.

To ensure we are operating a safely as possible our electricity Transmission system has an alarm system to draw attention to any faults on the network – we monitor approximately 500 000 alarms a year. Approximately 12 000 of these alarms result in work being carried out on site (around half of these are out of hours). The Response team co-ordinate a national roster of standby engineers for out of hours work and management of emergencies.   The Response Team work a 24 hour 3 shift pattern with an engineer and a technician present at all times.

These roles are based in our Gas National Control Centre (GNCC) in South Warwickshire, where you could be involved in controlling and balancing the Nation's gas demand with the supply we have in the pipelines across the country. Gas Operations ensure there is enough gas in the system when people get up and turn their heating on in the morning, they also help our field-based colleagues who are responding to emergency situations (e.g. a gas leak), to control the gas supply in the local area.

Being part of the Gas Operations team means working in a control room environment, which is likely to involve working shifts to ensure we keep the gas flowing at all times 24/7 - including through the night. As an engineer in the GNCC you will be at the heart of the decisions that are made and control all the actions that take place. Your first priority will always be the continued safe and secure operation of the gas transmission system whilst enabling and facilitating the changes to the new sources of gas entering the United Kingdom.

On the programme you will be exposed to new activities, deliver new services and innovative products to the gas industry to ensure you finish the programme ready to take your role in Gas Operations.

National Grid owns and operates the gas National Transmission System (NTS) which stretches right across Scotland, England and Wales. This network comprises approximately 7,600 kilometres of high pressure steel pipelines and 26 compressor stations to boost the flow and pressure as the gas travels on its journey to gas consumers.  The gas is taken out of the transmission network via eight distribution networks and these are owned partly by National Grid and by other companies. To meet the UK’s future energy requirements National Grid is investing millions of pounds into modernising its NTS assets, some of which are in excess of 40 years old and require tailored replacement and improvement.

This large capital investment plan provides exciting opportunities to be part of a multi-disciplined highly focussed project team within Maintenance Delivery Gas (MDG) delivering a substantial programme of replacements / improvements on the NTS which are essential to ensure the safety, reliability and security of our high pressure gas network.

As part of this National Grid team you will be exposed to all aspects of project management, high pressure gas engineering design and operation, together with a structured training / mentoring programme.  This will provide an excellent opportunity to gain all round skills and experience which will assist with professional development and career progression.

The role provides the opportunity to interface with many departments within National Grid and will enable a network of industry contacts to be built up. There will be opportunities to travel throughout the UK and gain first hand practical experience of the planning and delivery of projects vital to the NTS infrastructure, making a valued contribution to the continued safety and reliability of the UK’s high pressure gas network.

The start date of the Engineer Training Programme is September 2012 and assessment centres are scheduled for the dates below at either our Training Centre in Eakring, Nottinghamshire or at Warwick Conferences in Warwickshire:

Helping you to understand and manage your application

As you will appreciate recruiting for 5 main development programmes and 8 secondary programmes with over 55 different locations, we need to have a phased approached in order to take candidates through the recruitment process and this can often mean that some candidates will be waiting longer to attend Assessment Centres.  This timetable is intended to help you to plan for your application and to understand the sequence of the Assessment Centres we will be running for the 2012 recruitment campaign.

Candidates should expect to move through the various recruitment stages during the eight weeks leading to the Assessment Centre date and receive an invitation to attend an Assessment Centre approximately three weeks before the date.  Please note that Assessment Centre dates are subject to change and we do not guarantee that all candidates will be offered the opportunity to attend an Assessment Centre.

Your application is extremely important to us and we look forward to meeting you in the future.

Thank you for your interest in the Engineer Training Programme, to apply please select the team / location you wish to apply for:

Gas (office-based)

Gas Asset Management, Gas Network Investment - Warwick

Gas Network Operations, Warwick

Gas, Maintenance Delivery Gas, Ambergate, Derbyshire

Substations (field-based)

Substations - Aberthaw, Glamorgan, Near Barry

Substations - Barking, London

Substations - Brinsworth, Rotherham

Substations - Capenhurst, Ellesmere Port, Near Chester

Substations - Eggborough, Selby, North Yorkshire

Substations - Elstree, Watford

Substations - Heysham, Morecambe, Lancashire

Substations - Iron Acton, Bristol

Substations - Keadby, Scunthorpe

Substations - Lackenby, Eston, Middlesborough, Cleveland

Substations - Pentir, Nr Bangor, North Wales  

Substations - Rayleigh, Rawreth, Wickford, Essex

Substations - Sundon, Luton

Substations - Taunton, Bridgewater, Somerset

Substations - Tottenham, London

Substations - Walpole, Kings Lynn, Near Wisbech

Substations - West Weybridge, Staines, Slough

Substations - Willesden, London

All the info you need should be on this website, however if you are unable to find the information you want please call our Recruitment Team on 0845 301 8999