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Next Gen Makers

Helping Manufacturers to Run Winning Apprenticeship Schemes

The engineering skills shortage has been widely reported and is one of the main challenges facing the British manufacturing industry today. According to a government study, UK manufacturers would need to recruit an additional 203,000 skilled engineers each year until 2024.  
 
For many manufacturers, the solution is to ‘grow their own talent’ via engineering Apprenticeship Schemes. 
 
However, running a successful Apprenticeship Scheme and successfully attracting and retaining the best young talent is an art, which many manufacturers are yet to master. 
 
That’s why MSC is part owner of Next Gen Makers; we want to help more manufacturers solve their skills gap via best-in-class Apprenticeship Schemes. 

Who are Next Gen Makers?

Next Gen Makers help UK manufacturing and engineering firms to run winning Apprenticeship Schemes via benchmarking, best practice sharing and Kitemark Accreditation. 

They do this via their Engineering Apprenticeships: Best Practice Programme – an initiative through which manufacturing firms can benchmark their existing approach to running their Apprenticeship Scheme against industry best practices, identify where to improve and then learn from a community of other manufacturers running successful Apprenticeship Schemes. 
 
This includes access to monthly online best practice sharing events, as well as a video library and toolkit within a dedicated online learning platform. 
 
As part of the Programme, successful manufacturers that want to get recognised as ‘employers of choice’ for aspiring engineering Apprentices can pursue Accreditation for the Engineering Apprenticeships: Employer Kitemark – which is backed by the National Manufacturing representative body Make UK.

Introducing our Next Gen Partnership

MSC has partnered with Next Gen Makers to make a positive change in the lives of many young engineers and engineering firms.  
 
Through best practice sharing with other manufacturing and engineering firms, companies can learn how best to solve their skills gaps via running successful Apprenticeship Schemes. 
 
More manufacturers running successful Apprenticeship Schemes means more young people coming into – and staying – within UK manufacturing, ensuring our industry has the skills base needed to continue to be a world leader well into the future. 

The Benefits of Apprentices

Many firms, particularly, SMEs can see the process of taking on an apprentice as time consuming and overly complicated. But this is not the case anymore with new apprentice ‘standards’ meaning that an employer can expect to save time in the long run. That’s not all, apprentices can also offer businesses a variety of benefits including: 

  • Apprentices can be tailored to specific job roles, making the flexible to the needs of your business.  
  • Injecting new talent into a workforce which is often overlooked, can help improve business performance by adding a fresh perspective and new ideas.
  • Providing firms with the skilled workers that they need for the future and embracing the latest technologies.  
  • The process of taking on apprentices also encourages companies to take a closer look at how they do business, which can lead to improvements and increased efficiency.  

In fact, manufacturers who have an apprenticeship scheme report an increase in innovation, technological advancement, productivity, competitiveness, and ultimately profitability.  
 
Find out more about Next Gen Makers and how you could benefit from their Engineering Apprenticeships: Best Practice Programme here.