Laura Hurcombe, Head of UK Operations at SPP Pumps, explores the role of apprenticeships for UK manufacturing, arguing they’re much more than a nice-to-have: they’re a necessity for sensible, sustainable businesses today.
UK manufacturing has a people problem. Between an ageing workforce with many workers set to retire in the coming years and a boom in the demand for engineers, a widening skills gap is emerging. More skilled people are needed, and most companies are feeling the effects directly.
These issues are exacerbated in the rural communities where a significant share of UK manufacturing and engineering takes place. Here the local populations are smaller, transport links are thinner, and young people may not have clear visibility of the career pathways available to them.
All of this causes an acute problem that national and local governments can address, but which companies themselves must also tackle head-on. The best tool for the job? Apprenticeships.
Apprenticeships are in demand
I started my career as an engineering apprentice in machining at a Gloucestershire-based company making metrology equipment – precise tools used for accurate measurement. At the time, it felt like apprenticeship programmes were either less common, or less often prioritised by young people.
However, today the tide is changing, and these programmes are what young people want. Government-collected data for the 2025-26 academic year so far shows that the number of people starting apprenticeships has increased by 12% to over 226,000, with higher apprenticeship starts rising by 23% compared to 2024-25.
More people are successfully finishing apprenticeships, too. The achievement rate is up five percentage points to 65%. In manufacturing and engineering, roughly two thousand more people finished their apprenticeship than in the previous year.
Part of apprenticeships’ popularity is that they offer a pathway to a secure, rewarding, and long-term career that enhances social mobility and provides a way for young people to earn while they learn. For engineering and manufacturing businesses, that equates to an engaged workforce keen to be a part of your future – one which depends in large part on that very workforce itself.
Building bespoke systems and improving the bottom line
When a water utility, industrial operator or data centre developer commissions a critical pump system, they’re buying commercial and operational expertise as much as they are buying the hardware. If that expertise isn’t there, the product and the customers suffer.
SPP runs its apprenticeship programme to cement those skills and expertise within our organisation, ensuring customers receive the custom-engineered products that make up the majority of our sales. Without a deliberate, long-term commitment to developing technical talent, I believe it would be hard for any business to sustain the high quality, bespoke systems that SPP has come to be known for.
Naturally, delivering bespoke systems enhances any company’s reputation and longevity. In the short term, however, it can also have a direct impact on your bottom line. Our ‘Future Cell’ machining apprenticeship group is an example.
When struggling to recruit new experienced machinists several years ago, we decided to create a dedicated apprenticeship cell equipped with three new CNC (computer numerical control) machines. We selected Haas machines matching those used at our partner college so that skills could be transferred directly and immediately, and we identified components we had previously been outsourcing for apprentices to work on. Not only did this allow our apprentices to work on real product lines, it increased our overall capacity. Within eight months, the machines paid for themselves. Now, several years later, we’ve made considerable savings and those early Future Cell apprentices are operating our larger, higher-value machines on the complex, long-lead projects on which our reputation is built.
Lifelong learning and leadership
The scope of what we do extends well beyond bringing people in at 16 or 18. Over the past two to three years, we have put more than 40 existing employees through our management development apprenticeship programme, too. This translates into career longevity, and reflects an organisation that deeply values the apprenticeship pathway. Today, we have ex-apprentice representation at every level of the business, and apprentices make up around 10% of our UK workforce.
Filling our own vacancies is only part of the overall challenge. The skills pipeline is a problem for the whole of UK manufacturing and engineering, and deep down, it starts early – in classrooms, in the assumptions young people make about what’s available to them, and in the role models they see.
We work actively with local schools, including primary schools, to build awareness of opportunities and raise aspirations more broadly. I have a personal policy of never turning down a school that asks for support; our sector needs young people to consider engineering, and it needs representation. That includes for women, who still make up only 17% of UK STEM roles.
Increasing apprenticeship numbers is not easy, however. And for all the good brought about by the apprenticeship system lots of organisations find it hard to navigate. SPP has a dedicated HR team who understand, for example, the apprentice levy – a tax mechanism through which apprentice funding is collected and redistributed. However, other smaller employers find navigating the system and accessing the funding isn’t straightforward. So, if businesses are put off taking on apprentices because the system is too complex to work through, that’s a problem worth solving. Simplifying access to funding and making the process easier for smaller or less well-resourced employers would help.
Access to transport for young people is a less obvious, but equally important challenge. We are asking young people to get to factories and training facilities, which, in rural areas, can be quite a distance from their homes. Additionally, they may not be well served by bus or train routes. If the UK is serious about making apprenticeships accessible, the solutions must include investment in transport, and flexibility around how training is delivered locally.
SPP has around 20 apprentices on its engineering and business administration programmes. It takes on five new people each year and boasts an achievement rate of effectively 100%, providing pastoral support and development alongside technical skills. If someone you know is considering an apprenticeship in engineering, visit SPP Pumps to learn more.
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