Engineering news
Defence giant BAE Systems plans to recruit almost 400 engineering and business apprentices across its UK businesses in 2013, the highest intake since 2008.
The increase in apprentice intake comes as a growing number of young people are looking for alternatives to university, which entails paying high tuition fees, to progress their career.
The new recruits will work across the firm's shipbuilding, submarine and aircraft maintenance sites, joining a workforce of 35,000.
BAE Systems group managing director Nigel Whitehead said: “Our continued commitment to the apprentice programme reflects the sustainable position of our UK business and the success of the programme in generating BAE Systems’ workforce of the future. We like to train people from an early age and find that the combination of on-the-job training and academic study without debt, is a great motivator for our apprentices to stay with us. We look forward to welcoming our new intake in September.”
Approximately 10% of the new recruits will join the five-year higher apprentice programme which combines on-the-job training with the opportunity to study degree-level qualifications, without having to paying tuition fees.
The submarine-building business at Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria will welcome 144 new apprentices while another 105 will work at the company’s ship-building and naval support sites in Portsmouth and Glasgow.
The military aircraft business at Warton and Samlesbury, in Lancashire, and its aircraft maintenance academy at Robin Hood Airport in Doncaster will welcome 109 trainees. The Rochester-based Electronics Systems business in Kent will recruit 12 people.
BAE Systems Detica will recruit 10 apprentices for its Leeds offices. The munitions-production business will recruit four apprentices to work at its sites, and BAE’s Regional Aircraft at Prestwick in Scotland will receive three new recruits.
BAE Systems invests £80 million per year in education and schools activity, university partnerships and training and development.
In May last year the company announced 600 job losses. Bosses closed a historic Newcastle-upon-Tyne armoured-vehicle factory and further jobs were cut at Radway Green, near Crewe, Washington in the North East and Glascoed in South Wales.