Apprenticeship seeks to solve skills shortage

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Jun 23, 2005

A North London company has taken on its first-ever apprentice in a bid to overcome the deepening crisis in engineering recruitment.

A North London company has taken on its first-ever apprentice in a bid to overcome the deepening crisis in engineering recruitment.

Sam Ealey, 18, has joined Unimatic Engineers, which, like every other engineering company, has found it increasingly difficult to recruit engineering staff, particularly at the career-starting end.

Engineering and manufacturing have not been popular choices with school leavers for many years, despite the attraction of secure, interesting and well-paid careers.

"Our profession was tarred with a very sticky brush 20 years ago, when the unions and Government were at each others' throats", says Unimatic MD Martin Stevens.

"But the reality is now very different".

"We no longer employ large numbers of low skilled workers, but need highly trained professionals who are comfortable at the cutting edges of technology and can continually move forward from there".

"A career in engineering is probably far more exciting than anything an allegedly-trendy sector can offer".

"But kids and their advisors tend to follow the path of least resistance".

"Engineering opportunities are still vast, even in London, but are often hidden, particularly from school leavers".

Unimatic has recruited many experienced engineers over the years.

Traditionally it has also taken on graduates, who have gone through various training and experience-gaining programmes.

However the feeling arose that the best course of action now was to take on school leavers and put them through a structured programme, so that they grow from the ground up on solid foundations.

The initial focus of Ealey's three year training will be on mechanical engineering, concentrating on applying Unimatic's ranges of linear actuators, linear bearings etc.

This will lead him into servo systems and control technology.

He will also learn about CAD/CAM, CNC machines, rapid prototyping, IT and web-based solutions.

As with traditional apprenticeships Ealey will spend time in nontechnical departments as well, learning about business systems, finance and sales and marketing.

He will also have study time to attend college or university; details of this have deliberately been left undecided at this stage, but it could go up to degree level.

"The roundedness of the apprenticeship is very attractive", says Ealey.

"Three years from now I will be able to take my career in just about any direction I choose".

"I like the fact that engineering combines practicality and intellectual rigour, and also that you see projects through from beginning to end".

"There is a perception that engineers are poorly paid and always facing redundancy, but that is simply not true".

"Engineers have greater opportunity and more security than many other professions".

Ealey observes that he was unique at school in aiming for engineering, an issue seen from a different perspective by Martin Stevens: "Engineering tends to be concentrated further north than London, which means that the shortage of engineers is particularly acute here".

"However our technical sales force is spread nationally and they of course all feed into our HQ operations".

"One of the joys of being London-based is that we're local to all sorts of nontraditional engineering, such as special effects for film studios, medical engineering, research projects and excellent university links".

Sensibly Unimatic is taking an open-minded approach to the apprentice scheme, so that it evolves to everyone's best advantage.

However Stevens says he will definitely be taking on such trainees regularly from now on.