Siemens Leeds makes £1m investment as turnover doubles

Siemens in Leeds is boosting its supply chain and creating jobs with a £1m investment, having almost doubled turnover in the six years since it relocated to its current site.

The cash injection is to support a new service cell for rail fleet gearbox overhauls and will help Siemens bolster local investment in the supply chain as well as create up to 15 jobs over the next five years.  

In the last two and a half years Siemens has invested £2.5m across the Leeds factory and steadily grown its workforce to around 65 staff.  

The site is currently recruiting for more service engineers to work on wind turbines and plans to take on three more people for the newly created rail service cell.

Since moving to its purpose-built site in Stourton in 2010, the Siemens assembly and servicing centre has become a flagship for UK manufacturing growth.  

Originally assembling and servicing large mechanical drive units – gear units, motors, couplings – the site quickly developed and expanded its focus to take on much more, particularly in the last two years.

Rail coupling and wind turbine servicing are the key areas at the centre of this growth in Leeds, Siemens says, and a completely new team was created for rail servicing in 2014.

Siemens general manager Simon Nadin said: “We have a really committed team here at Leeds and their innovative ideas have helped us grow much faster, from more efficient ways of working to sending zero waste to landfill and one of the strongest safety cultures within this Siemens business unit.”

Andy Tüscher,  EEF region director for Yorkshire and the Humber, said: “This is a great example of ongoing local commitment from a global manufacturer and is good news going forward for Leeds, Yorkshire and the UK.  With the local UTC now established, home-grown engineering talent can be more easily sourced for the future.“