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Investing in our engineers of tomorrow

November 11, 2024 by Alistair Enser

This week I am offering my congratulations to Aaron Worsell, a Trainee Security Engineer with Reliance High-Tech, for being a finalist in the Engineers of Tomorrow (EoT), an award scheme that identifies the best new talent coming into the industry.

The EoT competition aims to raise the profile of engineering apprenticeships and the opportunities they represent within the security sector, and showcases the talent of the next generation. Taking place at IFSEC each year, winners of regional heats compete in a live installation challenge at the show. The winners of Engineers of Tomorrow then proceed to the WorldSkills UK (WSUK) LIVE competition – the UK’s premier skills, apprenticeships and careers event.

Aaron joined us in January 2022 on an apprenticeship scheme and is in the second year of a three-year Skills for Security programme that, on completion, will provide him with a level 3 Fire, Emergency and Security Systems (FESS) qualification.

Aaron tells me he had a job in “office admin” before joining us, and an apprenticeship with Reliance High-Tech appealed because he was interested in working with different technologies – indeed, he has always been interested in technology. Aaron’s hands-on training involves shadowing three different engineers at Reliance High-Tech, as well as attending skills training sessions five times a year.

According to Kelvin King, Regional Service Manager, the hands-on training that Aaron and others like him at reliance receive, ensures they are equipped to not only deal with the technical challenge of a comms failure at a remote site at three ‘o’ clock in the morning, for example, but also deal with customers with tact and diplomacy, ensuring the Reliance High-Tech customer care ethos is maintained. As Kelvin says, “You cannot beat hands-on training as it helps apprentices in every area of the role. Of course, it helps that Aaron is a very professional individual, is organised, and always on time with paperwork around ordering, for example!”

Aaron works on one of our largest contracts, ensuring critical infrastructure is kept secure and operational across multiple sites in the South East of England. He works with access control, intrusion and video systems and as he is also on the on-call rota, there has been the odd 3am call out!

At Reliance High-Tech we firmly believe that apprenticeships provide an important way of equipping the industry with talented individuals whose skills are perfectly aligned with the needs of a dynamic, technologically advanced and customer-centric industry like security. It’s why we are proud to include Aaron and his apprentice colleagues in our team and I wish him the best of luck in the finals of the WorldSkills UK (WSUK) LIVE competition!

We are always on the look-out for people who want a rewarding career in the security industry and we have a well-established apprentice scheme in place to help college leavers or those ‘re-trainees’ like Aaron change career direction, get on board and learn the necessary skills. For more details about the programme, or for general job enquiries, please contact info@reliancehightech.co.uk.