BAE Systems pilot initiative in conjunction with UK business sector agencies will train 50 engineering apprentices for companies in NW England.
Interested supplier companies attended a conference at the firm’s Apprentice Training Centre in Preston where the 50 young people will be trained. The successful candidates will receive a sought-after three-year apprenticeship in engineering from BAE before joining a company which supplies components or services to our military aircraft business in Lancashire or our submarine design and building facility in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria.
The conference follows UKCES’s announcement on 11 September 2012 of £165M funding under an Employer Ownership Pilot which will create thousands of jobs for young people. As part of this, £1.4M was awarded to us to train the 50 apprentices, which we are matching with our own funds and resources.
Steve Lee from Regal Precision Engineering, one of the supplier companies who attended the conference said: “Regal is not alone in finding that the major constraint in business growth is the lack of skilled people. This initiative seeks to address the problem by creating a generation of talented machinists for the manufacturing sector.”
Nigel Whitehead, Group Managing Director added:“‘This pilot scheme is a win-win situation. Supplier companies with more limited resources can access first-class training programmes and facilities whilst larger businesses take responsibility for developing the specific skills they need to grow and sustain their business, and with it their supply chains. I am confident that the pilot will be successful and in time, we can extend this scheme to other parts of the UK.”