Timera Rowe

Level 3 Water Treatment Technician Apprenticeship

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A man, water technician, in a white helmet points to something, while another man in a yellow helmet is holding papers.

Are you looking to start a career in Engineering and Manufacturing? Are you a self-starter and a great problem solver? If so, then a Level 3 Water Technician Apprenticeship might be for you.

What is a Water Technician?

Water Technicians are responsible for the development, installation and maintenance of water treatment programmes for the water systems of industrial and commercial buildings such as schools, hospitals and hotels. As a Water Technician you will be expected to ensure the quality of water is suitable and safe for specific uses e.g., for food production, drinking and washing, preventing and minimising health risks such as microbiological contamination and scale formation.

Within the Water Technician Apprenticeship there are different roles you may undertake. This may include: a Water Treatment Technician, Water Treatment Equipment Technician, Legionella Risk Assessor, Water Treatment Operations Supervisor. There will be some aspects of these roles that are similar and some that differ.

What are the entry requirements for this apprenticeship?

To apply for a Water Technician apprenticeship, the typical requirements are 3-5 GCSEs at grades A-C (including English and Maths) or equivalent.

What is required of a Water Treatment Apprentice?

As a Water Treatment Apprentice you should have a willingness to learn new skills and demonstrate the ability to be professional and respectful of others. In addition, you should be a self-starter and be willing to make independent decisions and develop solutions and improvements to work practices. Another core skill is to be able to work safely and to supervise the safety of others, as well as be receptive to feedback.

Water Treatment Apprentices will also learn the appropriate water treatment for specific water systems and be able to treat them. As well as, but not limited to, giving presentations and demonstrations to customer/site personnel regarding treatment recommendations and creating reports.

What technical knoweldge will you learn on a Water Technician apprenticeship?

Some of the technical knowledge all Water Treatment Technicians will be required to know are:

  •  The Chemical reactions involved in the corrosion and scaling processes in water systems.
  •  The cell structure of waterborne microbes and the interactions with biocidal products used to control them.
  •  The concepts of flow and heat transfer in water systems and how they affect water treatment processes.
  •  Ion transfer technologies, including resin and membrane based systems, used to change water quality.

The importance of health and safety

As a Water Technicians you should be able to keep yourself and others safe by understanding, complying and implementing statuary health and safety regulations and contribute to improving safer working conditions.

What technical tasks will you prepare and perform?

As a Water Treatment Technician you will:

  • Gather system data to enable the correct selection of operational resources that may be required e.g. access equipment (ladders, scaffold or cherry picker).
  • Complete work task risk assessments and develop work plans and method statements for the task(s) involved.
  • Ensure the suitability and correct operating condition of resources and equipment for the work tasks involved. This can include test equipment, chemical dosing equipment, water pumps and other specialised equipment.

You will also perform the:

  • Identification of suitable sampling and application points in a water system
  • Assessment of relevant test parameters and sampling plan for specific water systems
  • Performance assessment and evaluation of water system conditions and operations utilising specific monitoring equipment
  • Application of water treatment programmes to specific water system types e.g. cooling towers, steam boilers, heating and chilled systems etc.
  • Interpretation of test results and development of treatment programme improvements and recommendations

Undertaking an apprenticeship can be a great alternative to college or higher education.

For more information and to apply for the Level 3 Water Technical Apprenticeship check out www.apprenticenow.com.  

If a Water Treatment Technician isn’t for you, but you’re still interested in career in Engineering and Manufacturing, why not check out the Level 3 Digital Engineering Technician Apprenticeship.

Do’s and Don’ts of Email Marketing

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An email icon with two notification on a mobile device

Email marketing is a strategy for the promotion of commercial messages and is a great way to increase brand awareness and generate sales. With people regularly checking their emails and opening on average 34% of promotional emails Constant Contact (Jan, 2023), email marketing is an easy and affordable way to share content and messages to a mass audience at one time.

Check out some of the do’s and don’ts below that will help you reach success in the implementation of your email marketing campaigns.

A woman sat at a desk in front of a laptop on Mail Chimp, a email marketing provider
A woman sat at a desk in front of a laptop on Mail Chimp, a email marketing provider

1. DO keep your emails short and concise

Statista (2021) found that on average people spend 10 seconds reading emails from brands. Therefore, is it important for the content of your email to not only draw people in with compelling copy but to be short and sweet. Recipients should be able to scan the emails you send and get the gist relatively quickly.

2. DON’T send too many emails per week

We all know the feeling of receiving too many emails from a company… it can be frustrating as nobody wants to be bombarded with promotional emails every day. We recommend a maximum of 2 emails per week, but it is always good to test what works for your audience and to adjust accordingly.

3. DO optimise emails for mobile  

Email Blaster UK found that in 2018 at least 50% of emails were used on a mobile device, which is a significant amount. Therefore, it is important that you are optimising your emails for mobile use. You can make your emails mobile-friendly by:

  • Using device detection – many email providers such as Mail Chimp and Campaign Monitor offer device detection where emails can detect and adapt to different devices.
  • Length of subject line and pre-header text – It wise to check the length of both the subject line and pre-header text and keep them short and succinct. This will be the first thing a recipient will see before opening an email. If the most important messages are cut off when viewed on a mobile, people may be less inclined to open it.
  • Testing emails – a good way to ensure your emails are mobile-friendly is to send a test to yourself and open it via mobile.

4. DON’T forget to segment your audience

Email marketing isn’t a one size fits all, so make sure that you are tailoring your emails to specific groups. Different demographics will want to receive different information. For example, if you work in e-commerce and were building an email about the women’s online clothing sale, it wouldn’t make much sense to send that email everyone in the database i.e. men. Ensure you are sending relevant emails to the relevant people; you can do this by creating segmented lists for different audiences based on demographics or interests e.g., age, gender, location and interests such as sales, accessories, new season.

5. DO personalise your subject lines

Personalising subject lines typically includes a recipients first and/or last name. By making an email personal it can help to gain the curiosity of the recipient and thus increase email open rates. But don’t just take our word for it, Klenty has found that personalising subject lines doubles email open rates. For non-personalised subject lines, the average open rate they found was 16.67%. For personalised subject lines their data indicates an average open rate of 35.69%. So, the next time you send an email, add a touch of personalisation.

6. DON’T include multiple call to actions (CTA’s)

Depending on the context of the email, be wary of bombarding your email with too many call-to-actions. For instance, a newsletter may include a few CTA’s for people to find out more information, but for more sales-led emails 1-2 CTA’s will suffice e.g. ‘Check out our new sale’ and/or ‘Read our blog on the hottest trends this Spring’.­­

For more helpful tips and tricks on digital marketing, take a look at our other blogs here.