Developing our people

At our new multi-million pound training centre in Walsall, we provide safety and technical training for up to 114 delegates a day.

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Westwood - our state-of-the-art leadership development centre.

Investing in people

Network Rail is one of the biggest investors in vocational training and development in Britain. In 2009/10 we spent £26.8m on vocational training and provided 186,473 training days to our people – a huge investment in our future.

Supporting talent

We continue to support the engineers, technicians and project managers of the future through our graduate scheme, sponsored MSc, and our award-winning three year Advanced Apprenticeship Scheme, one of the largest in Britain. The 233 young men and women who joined as apprentices in 2009 have spent their first year studying technical, practical and personal development activities at Europe’s largest specialist engineering training centre, HMS Sultan in Gosport, Hampshire. They live and work alongside the Royal Navy, sharing modern recreation and sports facilities.

We also partner with top universities, run a coaching programme, have a state-of-the-art leadership development centre and much more – all with the aim of developing our existing people, and the next generation, to be the best.

Winner of Awards for Excellence

Our continued investment in talent has been recognised as best in class. In 2009, we won the Serco Talent Award, in association with the Talent & Enterprise Taskforce, at the annual Business in the Community Awards for Excellence. The awards are the UK’s most influential, independent, peer-assessed corporate responsibility awards. They recognise and celebrate those companies who have shown innovation, creativity and a sustained commitment to corporate responsibility.

In particular, we were credited for our comprehensive approach and the continued positive impact of our programmes. In 2009/10 this included:

• Delivery of over 12,000 delegate days of track safety training and 75,000 delegate days of technical training for our infrastructure maintenance staff helping us to maintain a safe and efficient railway
• Investment in multi-million pound training and development centres nationwide. For example our training centre in Walsall, which opened in March 2010 providing safety and technical training for up to 114 delegates per day.

Backing Young Britain

Download the full case study

We have been an active participant in the government-backed ‘Backing Young Britain’ scheme.

Download the case study341 KB PDF

Leading and managing teams

In 2009/10 we launched Leading and Managing Teams, the first management qualification to be offered by a UK employer with awarding body status from the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority. Currently around 1,600 employees each year are working towards one of our externally recognised qualifications

Backing Young Britain

In 2009 we participated in the Government-backed schemes Backing Young Britain and Graduate Talent Pool, giving 18 unemployed graduates an eight week paid work placement which also included skills training to help them find future employment. Four of our graduates who showed real promise, were offered short term contracts to extend their stay in the Company.