Trainee Train Conductor

BUSINESS FUNCTION: East Operations

GRADE: Conductor

SALARY: £22,331 per annum, rising to £29,098 per annum after training (approx 3 months)

HOURS: 35

ROLE TYPE: On Site

Are you passionate about working with people and delivering excellent customer service? If you love being on the move and making a difference, this could be the role for you.

At Northern, we play a vital role across the North by providing a reliable and friendly train service that helps hundreds of thousands of people to go do their thing. That's over 2,000 services every day, travelling to over 500 destinations.

We're here to make a positive impact for the North. And that means building a different kind of workplace. One that values individuality and celebrates differences. Somewhere we can work together, have fun, and do whatever it takes to make our customers’ lives easier. A place that encourages everyone to learn, grow and develop so we can all be our best every single day.

So, if you’re smart, forward thinking, passionate and full of fresh ideas like we are, you could play your part in making it happen.

Working on our trains as a Conductor, you’ll be the face of Northern as you help our customers have a relaxed, easy, enjoyable and safe journey - a real Northern experience. But there’s a lot more to the role than just checking tickets and travel documents. It’s also about building relationships with customers and answering queries, opening and closing train doors, making announcements, and dealing with unexpected delays and emergencies.

You don’t need any previous experience of working in the Rail Industry, as we’ll provide you with all the training you need to be successful and competent in the role. Our bespoke and interactive Conductor training programme starts with an initial 12 weeks classroom based training in Leeds or Manchester. The programme also includes an Apprenticeship, leading towards a Level 2 Qualification.

After that, you’ll make the most of a further 12 months of intensive learning and development at your home station, where you’ll learn your routes and build your knowledge of our trains so that safety always remains your priority.

About You

To be a great Conductor, you will be punctual and a reliable team player with lots of motivation, enthusiasm, excellent communication skills, and an ability to stay calm under pressure.

As the face of Northern, you will also be health and safety conscious; putting passengers at the heart of everything you do. As you might expect, not every journey will run smoothly and you must be able to remain calm and in control, in emergencies and stressful situations, whilst communicating clear and detailed information to customers and colleagues within Northern.

You'll also need to share our values, too. They reflect what's important to the way we work, which means we look for the same in everyone who joins us.

Make it yours - We're proud to be who we are. We don't hide our personality, we let it shine and bring our best every day.

Make it happen - We get the job done. Our expertise and knowledge mean we see things through.

Role Requirements

Working a range of shifts, from the early hours of the mornings until late at night, plus weekends and Bank Holidays, it is important that you are self-disciplined and can manage your lifestyle during unsociable hours and shift work. Other key requirements to the role are:

• Your home address needs to be within a 45 minute drive (at peak time) of the train station you are applying for.
• You should be at least 18 years old to apply, due to the safety critical nature of the role

Part of the recruitment process will include a medical assessment which will review your general health, vision, hearing, colour vision and you will also undergo a drugs and alcohol screening.

Our Benefits Package

Because we value our people and reward hard work, we’ve created a benefits package that we think you’ll love. So, you’ll be able to make the most of:

• Opportunities to progress and grow - including comprehensive training schemes and a range of online learning courses.
• Full uniform for customer-facing roles - our frontline people are the face of the business, so we provide you with a stylish and high-quality uniform.
• Free travel on Northern services - everyone who works at Northern, plus their partners/spouses and dependents, can travel for free right across our full network of services. *Certain eligibility criteria will apply.
• Defined benefit pension scheme - you’ll rarely find a pension as good as a Northern pension, and we top up your pension with an altruistic 1.5 times your contribution.
• A generous holiday entitlement - our incredibly generous holiday entitlements can help you feel like you can get away, too.
• Exclusive benefits with Northern Perks - enjoy retail discounts, instant vouchers, cash-back, wellbeing support and much more.

Plus so many more.

Our selection process is designed to make joining Northern as smooth as possible. It helps us decide whether you’re the right person to deliver a great service to our customers. And it can also help you make sure we’re the right team for you, too.

Here’s how it works:

Please apply online via our careers site and answer all questions fully to demonstrate your suitability to the role. If your application is successful at the initial screening stage, you’ll be asked to complete an online verbal and numerical assessment. If you meet the standards we require in the online assessments, your application will then go through a detailed shortlisting exercise, before we decide which applications are selected to attend an interview. The final stages include a safety critical medical and drugs and alcohol screen, before a final job offer is made.

If you’re successful, we may not be able to offer you a role straight away, we may need to keep your application on hold for a little while until the next training course becomes available.

We’re an equal opportunities employer and a promoter of diversity and inclusion in the workplace. We also have Disability Confident status, which means we’re committed to making the most of the talents that disabled people can bring to the workplace.

Ready to help our customers go do their thing? You can get started by telling us more about what your thing is.

All you need to do is complete our online application form - and we’ll be in touch to let you know what happens next.

Please note: Northern reserves the right to close the advert before the published closing date if high volumes of applications are received. In this situation partially completed applications will not be progressed forward or given extra time to complete.