Company details

Windsor, UK

HEADCOUNT

10000+

ORG TYPE

Corporate

SECTOR

Energy & Climate

WEBSITE

https://www.centrica.com/

About the company

Centrica is an integrated energy company best known in the UK through British Gas, supplying energy and providing home services such as installation, repair, and maintenance. The company also runs energy trading and optimisation through Centrica Energy and invests in energy infrastructure, including flexible and renewable assets. Centrica serves households and businesses, with a focus on supporting the energy transition and improving energy efficiency. Centrica operates across multiple brands and business units under the wider Centrica group.

Locations and presence

Centrica has major UK hubs (including Windsor and London) alongside field-based roles across the UK, plus office presence in countries including Ireland, Denmark, Belgium, Singapore, and the USA. Centrica promotes a “FlexFirst” approach for many corporate roles while also running on-site and customer-home based roles where the work requires it.

Palpable Score

76.5

/ 100

Centrica offers unusually broad early-career entry points across graduate schemes, year-in-industry roles, and high-volume trade apprenticeships, with real pay transparency in many entry routes. Learning support is well-specified in job adverts and early-careers materials, especially for rotations and funded professional qualifications. The main cap on the score is hiring-process consistency and outcomes reporting, where public candidate feedback is mixed and conversion or promotion metrics are not clearly published.

Pillar 1: Early-career access

Score

18.0

/ 20

The company runs multiple “Pathways” routes for early-career candidates, including graduate schemes built around rotations across brands and business units.
Centrica publicly commits to scaling apprenticeships (including a stated ambition of 3,500 apprentices by 2030) and advertises entry requirements that fit first-job hiring, such as GCSE-based criteria for trade apprenticeships.
The company recruits into several structured pre-grad routes (year-in-industry and internships) and regularly posts early-career vacancies across corporate and frontline teams.

Pillar 2: Hiring fairness and transparency

Score

12.5

/ 20

The company provides a recruitment FAQ and clear direction to live vacancies, but the company’s early-career pages do not consistently spell out stage-by-stage timelines or what “good” looks like at each step.
Centrica has published guidance on assessment days and graduate assessment-centre formats (group task, presentation, interview), which helps candidates prepare, even though some of the most specific content is older.
The company has mixed publicly shared candidate experiences on interview-review sites, including reports of smooth multi-stage processes alongside complaints about communication and no-shows, which limits confidence in consistency.

Pillar 3: Learning and support

Score

17.0

/ 20

The company builds graduate schemes around rotations and, in at least some schemes, funds professional qualifications with course funding and flexible study leave (for example ACA or CIMA on finance pathways).
Centrica trains trade apprentices through dedicated academies with hands-on learning alongside experienced engineers, plus structured milestone progression during the programme.
The company publishes a broad support stack (FlexFirst working, healthcare and mental health support lines, and active employee networks) that can matter a lot for early-career stability and belonging.

Pillar 4: Pay fairness and stability

Score

16.5

/ 20

The company posts specific starting salaries for graduate schemes (for example £34,000 for the Finance Graduate Scheme) and includes sign-on style bonuses and eligibility for bonus and share plans in the advert.
Centrica advertises paid apprenticeships with explicit pay progression and clear post-completion salary uplift (for example apprentice roles starting around £18,564 with milestone increases and a stated salary level after full completion and aftercare support).
The company describes a substantial benefits package (including pension contribution levels, profit share in company shares, healthcare support, and paid leave) that improves pay fairness beyond base salary, though not every role publishes full pay ranges.

Pillar 5: Early-career outcomes

Score

12.5

/ 20

The company links at least some early-career programmes to concrete outcomes, such as trade apprenticeships that state a defined salary level after completing the full programme and aftercare support.
Centrica ties some graduate routes to accredited qualifications (for example ACA or CIMA funding on finance rotations), which is a strong early-career outcome, but the company does not clearly publish conversion rates or promotion timelines for graduates across schemes.
The company’s public LinkedIn footprint shows a recurring pattern of people starting on Centrica graduate schemes and moving into specialist and manager roles over subsequent years, but this signal is not backed by Centrica-published retention or progression metrics.

Useful links & resources

Centrica Pathways – Graduates Centrica Pathways – Apprenticeships Life at Centrica – Supporting you (FlexFirst and wellbeing)