Further details on what will be on offer from an emerging £5.5 million state-of-the-art training facility on the South Humber Bank have been given as National Apprenticeship Week comes to a close.
Demand for engineering is set to sky-rocket in the coming years as the Energy Estuary embraces the huge decarbonisation brief, while continuing to thrive as a key industrial cluster in traditional and new sectors.
Humberside Engineering Training Association is investing heavily at Stallingborough, and the first apprentices are set to be welcomed at the standalone base this summer. The steel is now up at Pioneer Business Park, with the dedicated site located opposite Myenergi’s expanding headquarters and manufacturing site, close to Catch, where HETA has operated from for more than a decade.
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Building on its existing provision, HETA will develop new apprenticeship programmes including non-destructive testing as well as new courses to support the changing demands of employers with a curriculum-based on carbon capture and storage and the use of hydrogen as a means of energy supply.
With an estimated 54 per cent of the advanced manufacturing and engineering workforce likely to require a Level Four and Five qualification by 2024, HETA will continue to offer its “highly successful and long established” Higher National programme too.
Iain Elliott, chief executive, said: “Our ethos at HETA is to continue to invest in our facilities and staff to ensure we meet the continuing demands of employers in the region.
“With a changing skills landscape in the sector HETA continues to invest in developing new provision to meet the demands of employers and learners including expanding our apprenticeship provision and developing curriculum in carbon capture and storage and hydrogen.”
The new centre will be equipped with modern learning facilities and provide “a secure, safe and conducive environment for high quality learning across a range of apprenticeship standards in the engineering sector” joining its operations in Hull and Scunthorpe.
It brings HETA’s investment in skills development in the region to more than £10 million in the last five years, with the team well aware that advanced manufacturing and engineering accounts for 18 per cent of the UK workforce, with the sector facing “perhaps its greatest challenge” with an estimated 20 per cent of the workforce retiring by 2026.
Mr Elliott said this is resulting in a shortage of skilled engineers and driving wage inflation as companies seek to recruit the rapidly diminishing resource pool available to them.
“Apprenticeships are vital to the UK economy and finding highly skilled engineering apprenticeships gives young people the first step on the career ladder. With an average salary of £48,000 for a qualified engineer we are proud of the opportunities that we have found for so many young people over the last 55 years.”
Established by employers for employers in 1967, HETA currently trains more than 200 apprentices each year while also delivering crucial upskill training to more than 2,000 qualified engineers, servicing the needs of 450 employers.
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