Heritage Engineering Apprenticeships
Heritage Engineering Apprenticeships enable young people to enter the classic car restoration sector.
Hard to believe we know, but with a turnover of £18bn per annum, the historic and classic motor industry in the UK employs 113,000 people according to the Centre for Economics and Business Research. To put that scale into perspective, this sector is of the same order of magnitude as the whole of the arts & creative sector and is twice the size of the Scotch Whisky industry. However, there were no apprenticeships available that taught traditional mechanical skills to serve the needs of restoration employers, modern vehicle apprenticeships being highly focussed on computer-aided diagnosis and so not relevant.
The Galashan Trust has funded over £900,000 since 2013 in creating heritage engineering apprenticeships to teach relevant and transferable skills. In addition, trustee Francis Galashan has assumed various leadership roles to get this programme off the ground.
We continue to support this programme both via grants and through hands-on efforts with the result that there are now over 160 apprentices being trained at 3 centres in Bicester, Brookland and Shrewsbury with more training centres being planned. A charitable body, The Federation Skills Trust has been constituted to ensure that support for training providers, employers and young apprentices continues.
