Director talks on apprenticeships, educations and skills

By Nikki Jones, director of the University of Sheffield AMRC Training Centre

As featured in The Yorkshire Post on October 03, 2024.

Apprenticeships can transform lives. They are a key to unlocking investment in people - building up skills, confidence and knowledge. And they help create a pipeline of future talent needed for the advanced manufacturing sector and its supply chains – keeping our industry moving across South Yorkshire and beyond. 

The AMRC Training Centre was founded in 2013, when our first cohort of apprentices began their learning journey with us. In 2014, we opened the doors to our state-of-the art facility on the site of the former Orgreave coke works - a place where we train the next generation of world-leading engineers, equipping them with the practical skills and knowledge needed for industry, enabling manufacturing companies to compete on a global stage. 

Now, in 2024, we’re celebrating more than a decade of apprenticeships, skills delivery and impact. Many of our apprentices have gone on to win regional and national awards, devising ideas to save their respective businesses tens - sometimes hundreds - of thousands of pounds. Others have rapidly progressed in their careers to become senior engineers or even elected to their employers’ board of directors by the time they reach their mid-20s. 

I burst with pride when I say that to date, we have successfully recruited more than 2,200 apprentices and worked with more than 400 different businesses, from small start-ups to major companies. We have an apprenticeship success rate 25 per cent above the national average, and introduced some 22,000 children to a potential future in engineering. We are also a national beacon for how to deliver apprenticeships and training to people of all ages, a vital national priority.

All of this wouldn’t be possible without brilliant people, from our talented apprentices and their parents, to our hard-working staff, respected employers and valued stakeholders. All who share our vision and passion for skills.  I am fiercely proud of our drive, determination and the achievements we have accomplished so far.

Over the last decade or so, we’ve worked tirelessly to create a real-world manufacturing environment to help people succeed in some of the world’s most dynamic industries.  

Apprentices gain hands-on experience using industry-standard equipment across a variety of pathways - from mechanical manufacturing and product design, to mechatronics, welding and machining - sitting alongside our new apprenticeships;  automation and controls, composites and nuclear - responding to the skills needs of industry. 

For me, it is about the collaboration between employers, students and education – that tri-parted relationship. It’s about seeing those individuals succeed and stay in work. Over 90 per cent of our students stay in South Yorkshire and remain in the manufacturing sector - making a real impact in this region. We’re also an engine for social mobility, enabling people to be successful, independent and good citizens. 

Over a 15-year period, students who completed their apprenticeships with us between 2018 and 2023 will contribute £46m of productivity benefits, of which £38m will be in the South Yorkshire economy, and £280m of direct, indirect and induced GVA, with £233m of that going into the South Yorkshire economy.

The AMRC Training Centre is recognised by politicians and policy makers as a blueprint for vocational education and training, putting us at the forefront of the country’s skills agenda.

We feel so passionately about education and skills training, becoming part of powerful collaborations like the South Yorkshire Institute of Technology, made up of educators and employers from across the region working together to deliver technical education to help close skills gaps - backed by more than £12 million in funding from the Department for Education (DfE). 

Skills availability in manufacturing is a huge issue for companies looking to expand, particularly in newer technologies such as digital and green skills. The AMRC Training Centre helps to put South Yorkshire at a competitive advantage and is a critical part of the region’s investment proposition.  

A key mechanism in closing this skills gap is our Continuing Professional Development (CPD) courses, helping employers to up-skill, re-skill or multi-skill their workforces. Reinforced by the Government taking action with the development of Skills England and proposed plans to change the apprenticeship Levy to a Growth and Skills Levy.  

We’ve achieved a lot in little over a decade. But we’re far from done. We must continue to work together, supporting businesses to take on apprentices and invest in people and in skills, because standing still is not an option if we want to grow our economy. 

I want to expand our provision and be the provider of choice for industry, the one keeping pace with the latest manufacturing challenges and technologies in terms of data, automation, robotics and the renewable energy sectors. All of which is possible thanks to the ecosystem we sit within - pulling from experience of the University of Sheffield, an elite Russell Group University, and expertise of the University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre, a world-leading research and innovation cluster that works directly with the manufacturing industry and supply chains.  

It hasn’t been an easy journey to get to where we are now. I am grateful to those who come to us for their training and our customers and employers that put their trust in us. We will continue to work our hardest for them; staff, students, employers and carers. 

We are excited for the future ahead and what the next decade might bring, with our commitment to transform lives and make a real difference for UK manufacturing.