Northern trains next generation of professionals

Northern, the largest train operator in the North of England, continues to recruit, train and qualify the next generation of railway professionals. In the last six years, more than 2,500 colleagues have graduated from its trainee and apprenticeships schools with 1,500 conductors and nearly 1,100 train drivers entering service.

The operator is using its training expertise and state of the art academies to support other rail and customer transport organisations. Training academies in Manchester and Leeds host all Northern’s new trainees but have also supported the learning development of train drivers from Great Western and drivers and conductors at Grand Central.

Rail assessor courses have also been run for managers from Cross Country and retail training for colleagues from Merseyrail and Transport for Greater Manchester have been completed. Accident and Investigation programmes for managers are also available to the wider rail industry. Northern has recently been accredited by Ofsted as a ‘Main Provider’ for the national Apprenticeship Scheme, a status that enables it to offer its training services to other train operators and rail industry organisations.

Lisa Leighton, people director at Northern, said: “We are really pleased that our expert training programmes are not only supporting Northern’s operations but are providing benefit to the wider transport industry.

“Our training academies are some of the best in the industry and we have ambitious plans to make them even better and introduce first in the country state of the art technology.

“Through our apprenticeship schemes and other training programmes we are providing long term and stable careers and offering development pathways for individuals and supporting other transport based organisations across the country.”

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