TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT REVOLUTION CONTINUES AT NETWORK RAIL

Monday 17 Mar 2008

TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT REVOLUTION CONTINUES AT NETWORK RAIL

Region & Route:: National

Britain’s largest deliverer of projects – Network Rail – is launching an exciting new development initiative – a master of science (MSc) in project management. This comes just weeks after Network Rail was one of the first three companies in the UK given awarding body status by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA).

Tailored specifically for Network Rail, the one year postgraduate course is being run in partnership with world class institutions – University College London (UCL) and the University of Warwick – which are the awarding bodies. Designed to attract and develop future project managers, the company will sponsor 80 students through a fully-funded course starting this September.

The course will include Network Rail-specific modules and as part of their study students will work alongside experienced Network Rail project managers to build practical skills. This initiative is designed to complement the other project management skills development available internally and to help provide a world-class training scheme.

Network Rail will pay for the course fees, cost of accommodation and a bursary. After successful progress on the programme, the students will join Network Rail in project management positions.

Simon Kirby, Network Rail’s director, infrastructure investment said: “In the next five years we will be delivering over £20bn worth of projects as we seek to build a bigger and better railway. To do this we need high-calibre people and this groundbreaking scheme will attract those to rewarding careers at Network Rail.”

Peter Bennett, Network Rail’s director, human resources added: “This initiative forms part of the training and development revolution unleashed by Network Rail. Since taking over Britain’s railway infrastructure we have: launched an industry-leading advanced apprenticeship scheme; set up maintenance and signalling training schools; developed a foundation degree in rail engineering at Sheffield Hallam University; opened a leadership development centre and been given awarding body status by the QCA. This all demonstrates our commitment to world class projects delivered by great people.”

Stephen Pryke, director of studies at UCL, said: “UCL offers a holistic approach to understanding the management of complex projects, drawing together the engineering project management techniques with a range of innovative concepts drawn from the social sciences.”

Stuart Barnes, director of professional programmes for WMG at the University of Warwick, said: “The University already delivers the leadership development programme for Network Rail so we are delighted to be able to augment this with tailored masters-level education for those just starting out on a career with the company.”

Notes to editors

Network Rail will fund student accommodation for the duration of the course, an annual bursary of £5,000 and all relevant travel expenses will be met Students will be given with Network Rail projects on which to base their dissertations On graduation students could expect to be appointed as assistant project managers on a salary of up to £27,000 with excellent ongoing career prospects in the UK’s largest project management company To find out more and apply for the course please visit: http://www.networkrailmsc.co.uk About WMG at the University of Warwick: WMG, an academic department of the University of Warwick, is a provider of innovative solutions to industry, supporting some of the most advanced research, development and training projects in the world. The department currently operates the Stepping Stones leadership development programme for Network Rail in conjunction with Warwick Business School. WMG’s website: http://www.wmg.warwick.ac.uk About UCL: Founded in 1826, UCL was the first English university established after Oxford and Cambridge, the first to admit students regardless of race, class, religion or gender, and the first to provide systematic teaching of law, architecture and medicine. In the government’s most recent Research Assessment Exercise, 59 UCL departments achieved top ratings of 5* and 5, indicating research quality of international excellence. UCL is in the top ten world universities in the 2007 THES-QS World University Rankings, and the fourth-ranked UK university in the 2007 league table of the top 500 world universities produced by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University. UCL alumni include Marie Stopes, Jonathan Dimbleby, Lord Woolf, Alexander Graham Bell, and members of the band Coldplay. UCL’s website: http://www.ucl.ac.uk

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About Network Rail

We own, operate and develop Britain's railway infrastructure; that's 20,000 miles of track, 30,000 bridges, tunnels and viaducts and the thousands of signals, level crossings and stations. We run 20 of the UK's largest stations while all the others, over 2,500, are run by the country's train operating companies.

Usually, there are almost five million journeys made in the UK and over 600 freight trains run on the network. People depend on Britain's railway for their daily commute, to visit friends and loved ones and to get them home safe every day. Our role is to deliver a safe and reliable railway, so we carefully manage and deliver thousands of projects every year that form part of the multi-billion pound Railway Upgrade Plan, to grow and expand the nation's railway network to respond to the tremendous growth and demand the railway has experienced - a doubling of passenger journeys over the past 20 years.

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