In November 2017 Babcock embarked on its pilot STEM Returners programme to welcome back career break engineers to its Bristol office. Recognising the growing skills gaps they were happy to think outside the box to ensure that they were attracting the very best people through an open and inclusive recruitment process. Babcock has since hailed the programme an overwhelming success bringing talented and committed individuals in to the business. Since that first programme Babcock have run another successful programme in Plymouth and are now embarking on their third STEM Returners programme back in Bristol.
For more than a century, Babcock has been trusted to deliver bespoke, highly-skilled engineering support. Underpinned by a deep understanding of technology integration, infrastructure management, and specialist training, they help customers around the world to improve their capability, reliability and availability of their most critical assets within the key market sectors of Marine, Land, Aviation, and Nuclear.
This time within their In-Service Platform Engineering team in Bristol, Babcock are on the search for more talented engineers to join them for a 13-week returners programme with the opportunity to become permanent at the end of the programme. Babcock aren’t just offering fantastic training and valuable work experience but a genuine opportunity to restart or transfer your career.
Babcock recognise that returners often face almost insurmountable barriers to returning to work after a career break, be that because of unconscious bias, a lack of flexibility or flaws in the recruitment process. Their support and commitment to offering returner opportunities and their success in retaining these engineers on a permanent basis shows career break returners just how much they value the skills that they have to offer.
The programme is open to men and women in the Bristol and surrounding areas who have taken any length career break, as well as those who wish to transfer sectors but lack the relevant work experience. Babcock are looking for returners with prior experience in the following:
- Process adherence/ management
- Data management
- Large data set analytics
- Dashboard production
- Electrical Engineering
- Mechanical Engineering
- Naval Architecture
- Project Management
- Risk Management
- Safety Engineer
Candidates signing up to the ‘STEM Returners’ programme will join a paid 12-week structured return to work programme which will include soft skills training, technical training and on the job experience, as well as coaching and mentoring support.
At the end of the 12 weeks, job offers will be made by Babcock to those who have shown the necessary skills and aptitude to join them. This isn’t just work experience but a genuine opportunity to restart careers within an exciting global organisation.
Candidates wishing to apply for the programme can do so through https://www.stemreturners.com/company/babcock/
Tamsin Dobson, Senior Engineer at Babcock and previous STEM Returner said
“My group of five returners comprised two women, three men and an age range which went from 23 to just shy of 60. Although many people imagine returners are always women who have had children, my group included a man who had left engineering a decade ago to help bring up his family and another man who had left the industry due to poor health. All of us enjoyed being able to brush up on softer, work-related skills alongside the more technical challenges.”
Natalie Desty, Founder of STEM Returners said “We are delighted to be running our third returners programme with Babcock. Babcock are fantastic employers completely committed to the programme which has been demonstrated in how they have supported, developed and retained their STEM Returners.