Budding Brunels Rail

Apprenticeships and Graduate Schemes

The Trust partnered with National Rail to create Budding Brunels Rail. The programme adapted our industry-recognised Budding Brunels course to engage young people and communities along the Crossrail lines in East and West London developing industry awareness and employability skills for local young people whilst creating opportunities to feed into Network Rail’s apprenticeship and graduate schemes. Through working in a wide range of communities, including schools with a higher than national average percentage of students eligible for Free School Meals, and girls schools, we helped to inspire a more diverse selection of young people apply for the National Rail placements.

A unique part of the Budding Brunels Rail programme was the development of a Budding Brunels Rail Club, an alumni network for participating students interested in pursuing a career in the industry. The Club enables them to have a channel through which they can voice their experiences, receive newsletter updates, gain dedicated on-going careers advice and guidance and act as Trust ambassadors, engaging with future beneficiaries within their community to share experiences and promote the project.

"I had an excellent experience, the site visit and activities. You felt like an actual worker on the site. You don’t comprehend it when you’re sitting in a school or college and trying to study, you comprehend it when you see it in front of your eyes." Tushant - Budding Brunels Rail student