Leonardo set to boost apprentices, industrial placements by 50%

Author: EIS Release Date: Sep 16, 2022

Leonardo is highlighting that it is increasing its early careers population in the UK by 50% over the coming year.

 

Leonardo set to boost apprentices, industrial placements by 50%

 

The aerospace engineering company – with UK electronics sites including Basildon, Edinburgh, Luton and Southampton – says it is planning to hire an additional 300 apprentices, industrial placements and graduate scheme starters in 2023.

 

This will bring the total number of young people on early careers schemes to 900, which represents an increase of 50% in one year. It writes:

 

“Leonardo wants to bulldoze barriers to inclusion by recruiting a more diverse early careers population of graduates, apprentices and placements to meet their pressing requirements to fill current and future vacancies for programmes set to run to 2040 and beyond. Because the Company has found that their best innovation has emerged from teams that are more diverse, they are building diversity and inclusion into their recruitment processes.”

 

The impetus behind the recruitment drive, says the company, is a number of high profile programmes based at its Luton site including Tempest, the RAF’s next-generation combat aircraft set to go into service in 2035.

 

“Offering better social mobility to people from underrepresented communities through well paid professional careers can have a ripple effect that stretches far beyond the individual employed,” said Lynda McVay, Director of Skills and Capability at Leonardo. “They can become trusted role models for the young people from their communities, by opening doors they thought were closed, or they didn’t know existed.”

 

“We are proud to be the first aerospace engineering company to have undertaken This Is Purpose’s assessment process to better understand the value we do and can bring to our people, our communities and the UK.”

 

As one case example, provided by the company, Jay Mistry – aged 20 and pictured above – was aged 16 when he joined Leonardo in Luton as an apprentice in 2018 after studying GCSE’s at Parmiter’s School in Watford. He first learned of Leonardo when employees visited his school to talk about engineering careers, then later when he spoke to a Leonardo team at an apprenticeship open day.

 

He has now completed his four-year apprenticeship and has just started working full time as an Antenna Technician, involved with high profile projects including the Tempest.