Engineer your career

Our Advanced Engineering apprenticeship scheme recently received approval from the Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET).

This involved a thorough assessment process including interviews with apprentices and engineering manager, Darren Borthwick, as well as visits to a mail centre and training provider.

‘It’s an honour for us to have our scheme approved and maintain our partnership with the IET, which provides our engineers with a professional home for life,’ said Darren. ‘Our apprentices are studying the Engineering Technician Pathway of the Mechatronics Trailblazer Standard delivered by our training partner, Training 2000.

‘My special thanks go to engineering manager, Alan Wright, and the apprentices at Preston Mail Centre who were excellent hosts during the process.

‘The approval means that on completion of the apprenticeship scheme, our apprentices are able to apply for professional registration at EngTech level with the Engineering Council. We maintain the approval for three years and will then have to go through the process again to ensure the scheme is keeping to the high standards already set.’

To further promote our Engineering Apprenticeship scheme, Royal Mail was invited to join a recent careers fair at a school in Swindon where 40 local employers took part. Two of our local engineers assisted on the day where some very keen young people took an interest in the scheme.

Engineering manager, Andrew Thomas, from Swindon Mail Centre said: ‘To say the pupils were impressed with Royal Mail stand would be an understatement! A big hit was the new “mini sorting machine” demonstration rig, which shows how we test for metal in letters and fraudulent stamps.’

We currently have 37 engineering apprentices working across three cohorts in Royal Mail with 12 of whom due to graduate in September when we will take on a further 24 across the country.