September saw the latest intake of Shepley Group apprentices, hiring 21 young people across 6 disciplines. This is testament to our commitment of developing the next generation and improving the skills of local people.

The apprentices were made up of 7 electrical apprentices, 7 manufacturing apprentices, 5 mechanical apprentices, as well as two apprenticeships in business administration.

We are delighted to see so many apprentices willing to start their careers with determination, and we were also incredibly happy to see so many applications from girls, showing a real change in the attitudes around engineering. Over half of the apprentices hired this year were females, which is a massive feat, and one we hope is a real sign of things to come, with even more progress being made in the diversity of our workforce.

With the addition of the new recruits, the Shepley Group is now comprised of over 60 apprentices, representing just under 10% of our workforce. As members of the 5% Club, as well as being dedicated to developing the future skills in our local communities, we are more than proud of our progress.

Some of the key points of the Shepley Group Social Impact Strategy include developing the next generation and improving the skills and employability of local people. We are immensely proud of our commitment to our apprentice scheme, but also our Improverships. This is a scheme in which our current semi-skilled employees who want to progress themselves can be put through a range of courses and achieve an NVQ in a specific trade. Over the last 10 years, we have seen in excess of 50 semi skilled employees develop their careers through this route, including Mike McCrickett and Chris Tyson, who both achieved an NVQ in mechanical fitting.

We are looking forward to seeing the latest intake of apprentices develop and grow, and hopefully follow in the footsteps of a lot of our Senior Management Team who all started out as apprentices!