McLaren Automotive share their skills story at exclusive workshop

Luxury, high technology supercar maker McLaren Automotive has shared its skills and growth story at an exclusive workshop arranged by the Sheffield City Region’s Skills Bank.

The UK-based supercar maker has committed to the region by opening up its new £50m McLaren Composites Technology Centre (MCTC) to innovate and manufacturer the next generation of lightweight carbon fibre chassis and composite components in the Sheffield region. McLaren is now taking part in four masterclasses, with the first having taken place just before Christmas with three more by the end of February.

The sold-out workshops are an interactive exploration of McLaren Automotive’s skills story and how they coped with their dramatic growth.

McLaren operate in the fast-paced and exciting world of luxury automotive technology and motorsport, growing from an automotive start-up to more than 2,700 staff in under a decade, embracing some major challenges along the way.

McLaren’s journey is one which offers lessons learned from many perspectives including change management, leadership, employee development, recruitment and skills issues, technological developments and its desire to challenge the impossible.

Presented as an interactive workshop and delivered by Wes Jacklin, MCTC Plant Director, the workshops give attendees the chance to hear first-hand about McLaren’s experience, in particular how it has dealt with skills challenges, how upskilling has supported business growth and the considerable work the company does to promote careers in science, technology engineering and maths (STEM) subjects

Krysia Wooffinden Assistant Director for Skills and Employment at Sheffield City Region, said: “McLaren Automotive’s story is remarkable, with enormous growth in a relatively short space of time. We are delighted to be working with Wes and his team on these workshops, as they share their story on how they upskilled their workforce to match demand and ambition.

“Those who are attending a workshop will gain a real insight into how upskilling has helped one of the biggest names in manufacturing and should inspire them to look at their own skills plans for 2020 and beyond, and how programmes such as Skills Bank can help them to grow.”

Wes Jacklin, MCTC Plant Director for McLaren Automotive, said: “I’m delighted to be able to share our decade-long story of rapid growth with leading businesses from the region. While we uniquely design and hand-make luxury supercars, the business challenges we faced – setting up supply chains, establishing factories, defining our vision as well as recruiting and skilling our employees – are familiar to almost all businesses.

“One of the reasons we chose this region to situate our second facility is because our innovative culture is reflected in the dynamism that exists here. I’m looking forward to the remaining workshops to see what we can learn from local business and entrepreneurs that we can take back into our own business to continuously innovate what we do and how we go about doing it.”

Skills Bank helps businesses understand the impact training their staff can have on their growth ambitions, productivity and staff retention. Businesses that work with our Skills Advisors receive a personalised service which helps them to identify the right training and support them to decide for themselves who they want to deliver that training.

And where existing training does not exist, Skills Bank can develop tailor-made programmes specifically designed to address the needs of that business.

Further information on the programme, for both employers and training providers, can be found at https://skillsbankscr.co.uk/ which outlines some of the training on offer as well as details on the range of training providers already involved in the scheme.

The on-line application can also be found here and the process couldn’t be easier.