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Awards 2023
Ennerdale 184

Prima Uno Project Controls, Project Delivery and Project Management Centre of Excellence rolling out to Thurso, Oxford and Warrington

Since Prima Uno was established in 2012, its main aim has been to grow the business into a nationally respected specialist consultancy. Alongside this ambition Managing Director Sarah Purdham also wanted to set up a ‘Centre of Excellence’, enabling more people in West Cumbria to become nationally respected Project Control specialists. Prima Uno set up its Project Controls Centre of Excellence (COE) at the end of 2014. We are now rolling out this COE to other disciplines such as Project Management and also different geographical areas of the UK such as Thurso, Warrington and Oxford.

Prima Uno is looking to develop highly trained employees with exceptional skills and knowledge so they can work as estimators, planning engineers, project controls specialists, quality surveyors and project managers across the UK in many sectors.

It is a very specialised field, one with a national skills shortage. Prima Uno people provide these skills across the UK and also have the training capabilities to pass this knowledge on to others.

There is a huge shortage of local and national planning and project controls skills and with new major nuclear projects across the UK and a new nuclear new build plans on the horizon this lack of industry expertise is already a huge risk. Prima Uno is creating the platform for home grown talent giving school leavers (age 18), students and graduates a chance to get a wonderful qualification in project controls or project management with lifelong career potential.

Prima Uno will be looking at on-boarding trainees in early 2024 as well as engaging a Head of Training to manage this scheme. Applications have already started coming in for apprentices, graduates and the Head of Training applicants. We welcome applications from all over the UK.

Sarah Purdham MD of Prima Uno states “Growing our own people has been a mission of Prima Uno since the start, for us now to be able to grow local talent from the local areas of some of our major projects is the right thing to do but also imperative for us being able to grow our own talent. We, as a company, are excited for 2024 with some new faces joining Prima Uno and some new projects starting. We will welcome the first cohort in the new year. We will also be contacting our clients and welcome any new clients to get in touch if they would like to support us in this scheme”.

Prima Uno will be offering their trainee work force apprenticeships and degree courses in project controls, quantity surveying and project management.

Apprenticeships and Degree Courses

The Prima Uno Project Controls Apprenticeship is detailed below alongside recognised qualifications with ECITB, ACostE, APM, Institute of Risk in association with local colleges around their major projects across the UK.

Qualifications ECITB Level 3 Diploma in project control practice

Project Controls Engineer will be able to progress to more specialist roles in areas such as project controls, planning, scheduling, estimating, cost control, risk and quality.

  • Introduction to Project Planning and Project Controls
  • Earned Value Analysis
  • Critical Path Analysis
  • Introduction and Guide to Procurement
  • Introduction to Design
  • Introduction to Governance
  • Introduction to Change Control and Trends
  • Cost Management
  • Contract and Commercial management
  • Reporting (Period/Month End) Programme Board Reporting
  • Risk, Opportunity and Contingency in Projects and Programmes
  • Quality
  • Industry Best Practice
  • AI in project controls
  • 4D planning and BIM in project controls.

Industry Specific Training

  • Nuclear decommissioning industry syllabus/norms
  • New sector industry norm development
  • Rail industry syllabus/norms
  • Water industry syllabus/norms
  • Civil and construction syllabus/norms
  • Wind energy and wind turbines
  • Renewables

Ad hoc courses

Prima Uno will offer various ad hoc courses such as earned value foundation and practitioner, critical path analysis, APMP, P3M3.

Project Management Graduate Centre of Excellence - Degree courses in project management and controls in association with the local colleges and universities which are located near Prima Uno major projects.

Programme Overview

A graduate project management professional will be learning aspects of the following:

  • Support the delivery of projects safely, in a timely and cost-effective manner
  • Work with multi-disciplinary teams
  • Work in various sectors such as water, nuclear decommissioning, civil, rail, transport and logistics
  • Develop skills in Estimating, Commercial, Financial Management, Planning, Risk and Performance Management

This is a four-year Degree Apprenticeship scheme which offers on the job learning across a broad range of project delivery areas. Whilst on the scheme you will undertake six 6-monthly placements with Prima Uno clients or sponsors and one final year 12-month placement in Project Management, Project Controls or Risk Management.

We hope that our project management graduates will follow a route to pursue professional development or chartership which will be fully supported by Prima Uno.

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