More than a decade after making his Scotland debut, Nikki Walker will join Edinburgh in the summer a bid to revive his international career.

The 31-year-old Aberdeen-born winger, who has spent the past seven years playing in Welsh and English rugby, heading south when the Border Reivers were disbanded in 2006.

Now approaching the veteran stage of his career he has been a prolific try scorer since he emerged as a teenager with Hawick and has the capacity to form a fearsomely powerful partnership at Edinburgh with Tim Visser.

Dutch-born Visser's qualification for Scotland, along with the emergence of Stuart Hogg and recruitment of Sean Maitland, has transformed the national team's firepower.

He has been the leading scorer in the Magners League/RaboDirect Pro12 every season since he joined Edinburgh four years ago, a sequence that has taken him to the top of the competition's all-time scoring list alongside Tommy Bowe.

However, in spite of having had to compete for a place at the Ospreys for six years with Bowe and Shane Williams, one of the all time greats of Welsh rugby, Walker is also in the top five of that all-time list, having scored 36 tries in the competition which he helped the Welsh province win on two occasions.

He maintains that position in spite of having spent this season at Worcester Warriors in England's Aviva Premiership, where he has registered a further four tries in 11 appearances.

Walker's international career has meanwhile been much interrupted since he first toured with Scotland to North America in 2002, going on to make his full Test debut in that year's autumn Test against Romania.

A week later he scored a famous try, albeit a slightly controversial one since there was some doubt as to whether he properly touched the ball down in the 21-6 triumph over South Africa which ended a 20-year Scottish wait for a win over one of the Southern Hemisphere's big three. Since then Walker has been something of a rarity among Scottish players of his era in boasting a winning record at Test level while scoring six tries, itself impressive in terms of the strike-rate of Scottish wingers in the past 20 years. Yet he has made only 22 further starts for his country.

As well as selectorial foibles, that has been contributed to by some unfortunately-timed injuries, most conspicuously two years ago when he looked to have fought his way into Scotland's 2011 World Cup squad only to suffer a serious knee injury in the final warm-up match against Italy.

Walker missed the entire season and has not been capped since but his form with Worcester earned him a call-up to the Scotland A team which beat England last month and he was on duty among the non-playing travelling reserves in Paris for the last match of the RBS 6 Nations Championship against France. That tantalising taste of re-involvement in the national squad has clearly stimulated his appetite for more. He was also keen to return home and clearly believes the time is right to do so with his former international colleagues Steve Scott and Duncan Hodge having recently taken charge at Edinburgh.

"I've thoroughly enjoyed my time playing outside of Scotland but I've always had a burning desire to return north, so when the opportunity came to sign for Edinburgh I grabbed it with both hands," Walker said yesterday as his signing was announced.

"The club have some real quality players in the squad and I believe that together we can build a strong future and compete with the top teams on the domestic and European stages.

"As a winger, I'm looking forward to joining up with some of the competition's most dangerous playmakers and finishers. I can't wait for next season to start.

"Being passionate Scots, my family are delighted that we're moving home and I still have a strong desire to represent my country, something I can achieve by earning selection and performing for Edinburgh."