Training The Next Generation
We recognise the importance of working with young people and helping them with building the skills which will help to build their careers once they leave education. For several years, we have been providing apprenticeships and placements to students to help enhance their skills and education – which carries on in the upcoming academic year.
This closely aligns with our company values in several different ways, including:
-Success through investing in our employees.
-Teamwork through working reliably and with integrity amongst ourselves.
-Quality through developing engineering excellence from knowledge and expertise.
These values help to push our apprenticeship and placement students forward during their time within the company – having a positive impact on both our customers and themselves. This supports our aim to match clear career paths to the ambitions of our people, so we can help them reach their goals during their time working within the company.
Our placements are run through the Engineering Development Trust (EDT), which are a dedicated charity offering young people active learning experiences in STEM-related careers. Their work helps to increase the number of young people opting for careers in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) industries – as the roles are set to increase in the future. At current, there is a shortage of skills which is costing employers £1.5billion a year in additional training costs, recruitment, temporary staffing, and inflated salaries. With a current shortfall of 173,000 workers, it makes the work of the EDT and Year in Industry (YINI) even more important. The YINI scheme offers pre-university and undergraduate students the opportunity to work within the industry on a placement lasting between 10 and 12 months.
We see the value in these placements for the students, the business, and our customers. They benefit our students in ways such as: exposure in a professional environment, networking opportunities and the chance to gain platinum level on the Industrial Cadets award. There are also several business benefits, which are passed onto our customers, including access to young talent, extra hands to help improve our lead times and enhancement of our future workforce. Some of our past students have managed to gain permeant roles in the business following graduating – such as Andy Leather who undertook a placement year in 2016 as Business Improvement Assistant before returning to the company and is now Group Operations Manager. For the upcoming academic year, we have taken on 2 new students: Lauren Bunyan as Sales and Marketing Coordinator and Jahin Touhidul as Business Improvement Co-ordinator.
Alongside placement, apprenticeships have a prominent role within the company, running throughout departments across the business. We currently offer apprenticeships for school leavers and graduates in areas including fabrication, engineering, accountability, finance, and IT systems. The programmes are beneficial for developing a motivated and skilled workforce, with relevant skills developed throughout. Once again, this is valuable for our customers as it leads to increase productivity and improved product/service quality.
We currently have 9 apprentices working throughout the company, including:
-Harry Bird (1st Year Fabricator/Welder)
-Ethan Hunt (1st Year Fabricator/Welder)
-Joe Nevill (1st Year Fabricator/Welder)
-Josh Winter (1st Year Fabricator/Welder)
-Tom Shardlow (3rd Year Fabrication/Welder)
-Liam Whitmore (3rd Year Fabrication/Welder)
-Leyton Allen (3rd Year Fabrication/Welder)
-Callum Oram (3rd Year Fabrication/Welder)
-Bradley Sheppard (3rd Year IT Apprentice)
Keep an eye out for our upcoming placement and apprenticeship vacancies through the Vacancies page on our website or follow us on LinkedIn.
If you are interested in applying for the role, then get in contact at [email protected].
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