The Yorkshire Post has collaborated with Drax Group UK to celebrate Drax Power Station’s 50th anniversary with a series of short films.
Today the country’s largest power station explains its jobs and skills commitment to driving ambition and aspirations of the next generation.
For more information visit https://www.drax.com
Today the country’s largest power station explains its jobs and skills commitment to driving ambition and aspirations of the next generation.
For more information visit https://www.drax.com
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NewsTranscript
00:00Drax has had a real focus on community and on building local prosperity and growth.
00:22As a result of this, there's been a key focus on skills and talent and really engaging with
00:28the next generation. That means building relationships with students of all ages and really driving
00:35the ambition and the aspirations of our local next generation.
00:40There's going to be 500,000 green energy jobs created within the next 10 years and
00:46Drax will obviously play a huge part and be at the forefront of a lot of those roles.
00:50The educational side of things is probably front and centre of everything that we do
00:53here. We work with schools from primary all the way up to universities.
00:57We provide funding for engineering apprenticeship and we also provide funding for projects which
01:04deliver educational programmes directly to young people around STEM or green skills.
01:10Sudbury College is at the heart of the community. We're a general further education college.
01:15We're really committed to the whole STEM agenda. I think as a college we're really fortunate
01:21to be in such close proximity to Drax and they've played a key part really in supporting us.
01:29STEM is tremendously important to us here at Drax Power Station because we've been running
01:34for 50 years. We want to run for another potentially 50 years and the people who are going to do
01:39that are the school children of today.
01:42STEM education is so important to enable careers in chemistry and engineering at sites like Drax.
01:49I did the traditional A levels of biology, chemistry and maths and had an affinity towards
01:55the chemistry so the diverse level of knowledge that I have now compared to 17 years ago when
02:02I started is huge.
02:05I've always lived locally to Drax. It's been really interesting to see how the plant's
02:09developed from living locally to working here and then the changes that have been undertaken
02:14in the time that I've been here with the promise of BEX hopefully in the future as well.
02:20I remember Drax coming into schools and colleges and it's always had a part to play there.
02:26A lot of people in the community are either employed directly through Drax or work on
02:33the site or employed for some of the supply chain and support network that goes around it.
02:39So yes, it makes a huge impact to the community around us.
02:44My family moved to Yorkshire in the early 1980s so I was lucky enough to be able to
02:49watch the north cooling towers as they were constructed.
02:52My dad also worked in the industry so he was at Drax and I used to come with him occasionally.
02:59Though I already had that interaction before I looked at Drax as an employer.
03:04When I was ready to re-enter the workforce after having my second child, the job came up in my department.
03:10It was ideal. I'd worked in the energy industry myself so I had a good understanding.
03:15I also worked with children and the hours fitted around my family life.
03:20We have a team that delivers projects that use Lego to help develop programming skills.
03:26We interact with career sessions. We also have a partnership with Selby College
03:32which looks at skilling, re-skilling and green skills.
03:37Selby College has got a reputation now of being at the cutting edge
03:41in terms of some of those courses that we run, particularly around carbon capture.
03:48We've been the first college in the country to develop those programmes
03:52and that is down to Drax and their commitment.
03:56We work closely with Drax and they're really enabling us to accelerate those developments,
04:02raise awareness but more importantly to create the workforce for the future.
04:08Drax Power Station and its operations supports over 6,500 jobs in the Humber and Yorkshire region.
04:15That's over £350 million of added value and one of the biggest business in our area of North Yorkshire.
04:23I think the region is rightly proud that not only do we have a really important asset that helps power the UK
04:29but it will have an asset that can help fight climate change in the long term,
04:33helping to sustain the critical employment that we have today long into the future.