Severn Trent has been named the UK’s top water company to work for as an apprentice, as rated by the trainees on the company’s apprenticeship scheme.
It ranked 19th in the Rate My Apprenticeship’s top 100 employers 2017-2018 list, which showcases companies offering the best apprenticeships and school experience programmes across the UK.
The company received more than 3,000 applications for its apprenticeship scheme this year and welcomed 61 new apprentices on the programme.
Severn Trent’s scheme combines hands-on experience with studying, providing a “competitive” salary to apprentices.
Mark Smith, learning and development adviser at Severn Trent, said: “This is an amazing performance because Rate My Apprenticeships is rated by apprentices, for apprentices.
“We always strive to provide our apprentices with an outstanding experience, and this ranking is telling us that we’re getting it right.”
He added: “To be ranked first in our industry is just fantastic, it’s really encouraging to see how we compare to other companies, so we can make sure we continually work to improve the experience for our apprentices.
“We make sure our apprentices are supported by other colleagues and that they get the very best out of their apprenticeship to kick-start their career with Severn Trent.
“We’re continually looking to improve and develop our programme, so hopefully next year we’re heading to number one.”
Severn Trent said it has doubled the number of options available to apprentices by offering eight different schemes, including new programmes such as finance, group commercial and project management, alongside the previous operational and engineering schemes.
The Top 100 list is based on thousands of student-written reviews submitted on Rate My Apprenticeship. Several other utility companies made the cut, all of which featured in the top 50, beating the likes of Amazon, Microsoft and Tesco.
Centrica British Gas appeared immediately after Severn Trent in position 20, and was listed as the top company in the energy category and 6th for engineering and manufacturing.
Other companies included EDF Energy (ranked 24th); National Grid (28); SSE (48) and Eon (50).