One Voice Blackburn are pleased to announce the launch of a new award in the prestigious 1V Awards Dinner 2024.

The Apprentice of the Year Award is sponsored by Electricity North West. It aims to acknowledge and celebrate an apprentice’s contribution to their workplace in Blackburn with Darwen.

Nominations can be made for the Apprentice Award from 1st September 2023, alongside the other six awards which carry a nomination. Apprentices who are currently undertaking the level (as at 1st September) can apply or their employers can nominate on their behalf. Nominations close on 17th November, and the winner will be announced at the 1V Awards Dinner in February 2024.

Electricity North West is one of 14 distribution network operators in the UK regulated by Ofgem and the majority of electricity enters their network from the National Grid.

They are responsible for maintaining and upgrading 13,000 km of overhead power lines and more than 44,000 km of underground electricity cables. This covers an area from the Lake District to the city of Manchester and all the wonderful towns in-between including the borough of Blackburn with Darwen.

Rachael Parr, Electricity North West’s people and corporate services director, added: “We’re delighted to be sponsoring the new Apprentice of the Year award at the 1V Awards Dinner. 

“Earlier this year, we announced a new £2bn business plan which will undoubtedly transform the region’s power network and our apprentices will have a major role to play over the next five years to complete huge programme of work.

“We’re also committed to upskilling and investing in our workforce and over our five-year business plan period, we’ll be creating 600 green jobs and we’ll also be looking to enhance the diversity of our current workforce.
“The energy sector is changing constantly and there’s never a better time to join. We have plenty of successful colleagues who started with the business as an apprentice and our latest cohort, who joined last September, are already starting to play a key role in allowing customers to adapt low carbon technologies such as heat pumps and electric vehicles.

“Later this year we’ll be further investing in more apprentices as the recruitment window for out latest intake opens. That’s always an exciting period and I urge anybody who is interested in becoming an engineer of the future to get involved.”

Sundas Bakhat, 1V Awards Manager at One Voice Blackburn is pleased to have another award in the line-up.
“We have considered an Apprentice of the Year award for a number of years. It is also fitting that we have such an outstanding apprenticeship provider in Electricity North West who are the sponsors of the inaugural award. Much like all the awards I am certain this section will have a high calibre of nominees.”