Careers at Cadent

Phil Hendrick’s first day as an apprentice – shadowing a much more experienced engineer – drove home the vital role of our emergency engineers in keeping people safe.

The pair had responded to a report of a smell of gas inside a property, which turned out to be a very real emergency, and involved working late into the night to resolve it.

“I loved every minute,” said Phil.

Hooked by the experience, two decades on he is now Head of Customer Operations for the ‘east’ half of our North West Network.

This places Phil in charge of hundreds of engineers, who either respond to emergencies (like those smells of gas) and / or maintain and repair, or connect new customers to the pipes which form our underground network.

This, of course, is 24 hours a day, and 365 days a year.

Phil’s apprenticeship involved months of training at Eakring (Nottinghamshire) and Hollinwood (Manchester), with lots of shadowing engineers too. He was following in the footsteps of his dad into the gas industry, who worked for us more than 20 years.

“My favourite part of job has always been interacting with customers, trying your best to help and support them, and also being mobile – which is exactly what I wanted in a job. It’s also been great to return the favour given to me 20 years ago – in helping apprentices, and all engineers really, in developing their careers with Cadent.”

Three of the four Customer Operations Area Managers (COAM) who report into Phil also started their careers with Cadent as apprentices – Trevor Lubbock (Stockport), Ian Royal (Warrington) and Stuart Millett (Hollinwood).

Stu said: “Like Phil, my dad also worked here for many years. I had a choice of going to university or taking an apprenticeship – and I made the right choice, 100 per cent. Learning, earning, manual things – it was, and is, all encompassing.

“What I learned then, both in the classroom environment and ‘on patch’ with more experienced engineers, has helped shape the way I do the job now [Stuart’s team manages Customer Operations for the city of Manchester and its suburbs].

“The youngest person in my team now is 16 and the oldest is 67 – that’s around 80 people working day and night to keep everyone safe and warm in their homes. We are a team – and that’s what you learn as an apprentice, the importance of teamwork.”