Youngest-ever winner of GBYPY Awards announced

Greater Birmingham Apprentice of the Year Santina Adjari-Bunting, Arup. Photo: Mr Ladd Media

A 19-year-old engineering apprentice has scooped the top prize of Greater Birmingham Young Professional of the Year 2024 — becoming the youngest-ever winner of the award. Santina Bunting, an apprentice in civil and ground engineering with global engineering consultants Arup, took home the top prize at the awards ceremony, having also triumphed in the Apprentice of the Year category.

The Greater Birmingham Young Professional of the Year Award 2024 was sponsored by University College Birmingham and was presented during the awards ceremony organised by Future Faces Chamber of Commerce, attended by nearly 500 people at the ICC in Birmingham City Centre.

The judges said that Santina was “absolutely remarkable at presenting and talking about her journey, with some major achievements”, and were very impressed with how “she was behind on maths compared to her university peers, so she taught herself A-level maths”.

In her role at Arup, she has grown steadily from developing geotechnical databases and creating drawings for early-stage highways projects to taking on engineering assessments, analyses, and report writing. Santina is also the voice for ‘early career employees’ at Arup, regularly organising workplace initiatives centred on topics such as imposter syndrome, personal branding and work winning.

Aiming for chartered status
Winning the G4C Construction Excellence Apprentice of the Year was another very proud achievement that recognised Santina’s engineering competencies. Now, as an assistant technician, she is aiming to become an incorporated engineer after finishing her degree and eventually achieve chartered status.

With a passion for promoting apprenticeships and STEM, Santina was recently nominated by the CEO of the Institute of Apprenticeships and Technical Education and invited to the King’s Summer Garden Party at Buckingham Palace for her work on its apprentice panel.

Achieving distinction grades in all of her units and exams earned Santina the ‘Student of the Year’ award from the head of the Built Environment Department and allowed her to complete her apprenticeship in two years instead of three. She also serves on the UCAS apprenticeship advisory board and regularly collaborates with Pearsons, UCAS and the BBC to promote her journey.

She participated in a UCAS live event from their studios and appeared in a GCSE results day video for Pearsons. Additionally, she has helped organise two apprentice events, one with the Black Apprentice Network and another with Outer Circle at Arup offices.

The Greater Birmingham Young Professional of the Year Awards ceremony was compered by Sky Sports News reporter Amber Sandhu, and the drinks reception was sponsored by Blackberry Events.

Georgie Butler, associate director of Blackberry Events, said: “Sponsoring the Greater Birmingham Young Professional of the Year Awards gave us an opportunity to celebrate the incredible achievements of young professionals across the Midlands. As a company with people, passion and purpose at the core, we had a great time celebrating the bright future of Birmingham with its passionate changemakers, and purpose-driven future leaders.”

The full list of award winners at the event can be found at the website here