Samuel Taylor breaks with convention on apprentices

A REDDITCH engineering company is challenging conventional industry stereotypes by successfully recruiting female apprentices.

Samuel Taylor, which specialises in contact materials, said it was looking to expand its long-established apprenticeship programme by attracting a wider range of higher education students.

Collaborating with the Midland Group Training Service, the firm has successfully recruited a number of youngsters looking to work in British manufacturing and for the first time, this year’s programme has also seen three young women participate.

The firm said this was an important step forward for a traditionally male-dominated industry.

The apprenticeship programme is aimed at young people between 20-27.

Alastair Gordon, managing director, Samuel Taylor, said: “We need graduates who have done proper old fashioned tool making apprenticeships. Unfortunately, they are hard to find, so we grow our own.”

Currently, 10% of the company’s staff started as trainees, some of whom have since moved into management positions.

The newly revised programme will offer intensive workshop training alongside tool making experience with specialist metal cutting machines and systems. Previously, the four-year apprentice programme consisted of a one-day per week college course.

To better reflect the use of higher education within a realistic engineering environment, the first year of the programme is now committed to a full time course at the Midland Group Training Service.

The apprenticeship programme expansion follows a recent report revealing that the Government needs to do more to attract youngsters into engineering.

Inventor and entrepreneur Sir James Dyson warned that Britain may face a deficit of 60,000 engineering graduates during 2013 if future talent could not be found.