SSE has become the latest utility to warn of a looming engineering skills crisis and a need to bring in more apprentices.
The Perth giant said around 50 per cent of the sector's workforce are due to retire by 2023 and 208,000 people need to be recruited to plug the gap.
ScottishPower recently made a similarly stark warning while Weir Group and engineering entrepreneur Jim McColl have also suggested there needs to be more done to get young people into the sector.
SSE said it was increasing its apprentice numbers by around 20 per cent having recruited more than 100 annually since 2007.
John Stewart, SSE director of human resources, said: "Apprenticeships put young people on track for a first rate career and with around 50 per cent of the sector's workforce set to retire by 2023, there is a need to invest now.
"We're boosting our apprentice numbers by 20 percent, investing £11.68m - an average of £80,000 per trainee - to recruit and train the workforce of the future. What's more, apprenticeship programmes work for the country as well as young people and business.
"Research we've carried out with PwC tells us for every £1 we spend on our apprenticeship programme the net economic impact on society is £4.29."
SSE said it has invested more than £64m in training in excess of 800 apprentices since 2007.
It offers apprenticeships lasting between three and four years in a number of different engineering disciplines which include electrical, mechanical, heating, overhead lines and gas.
Laura Sneddon, a 30-year-old Technical Skills Trainee (TST) with SSE's Power Distribution business (SSEPD), discovered the training scheme while browsing Twitter during a gap year in Australia.
She said: "The apprenticeship can take you anywhere - one day you might be out on a job and the next day you could be planning another, or learning about another part of the business.
"You spend time with jointers, liners and fitters, you undertake managerial-based placements and you spend around 13 weeks of the year studying for your degree."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article