Pall Aerospace’s Redruth site has become the first employer in Cornwall to achieve Gold status under the Next Gen Makers Engineering Apprenticeships: Employer Accreditation, following changes to its apprenticeship programme based on feedback from apprentices.
The aerospace manufacturer initially achieved Silver ‘Aspiring for Excellence’ status when it went through the accreditation process in 2025, missing the Gold standard by less than one point.
Rather than accepting the result, Pall Aerospace used feedback from the assessment to identify an area where its apprenticeship programme could be improved: the frequency with which mentors and supervisors met apprentices to discuss their learning and development.
The company subsequently introduced monthly mentor meetings between apprentices and their programme leaders, alongside regular catch-ups with Apprenticeship Manager Daniel Strong.
The changes were then assessed through a mid-year survey, with Pall Aerospace going on to achieve Gold ‘Excellent Employer’ status in 2026.
The accreditation is backed by Make UK and is based primarily on feedback from current apprentices through an Apprentice Satisfaction Survey, alongside an employer benchmarking questionnaire.
Gold status is awarded to employers demonstrating a consistently strong apprentice experience and a commitment to responding to feedback.
Developing skills for the wider industry
Pall Aerospace has operated its engineering apprenticeship programme at Redruth since taking on its first apprentice in 1985. In that time, 102 engineering apprentices have completed or undertaken training at the site.
Around 20 apprentices are currently based at Redruth across four years of training, supported by a dedicated apprentice training centre.
Daniel said the aim was to develop skills that apprentices could take throughout their careers, rather than focusing solely on creating future Pall employees.
“We are not trying to create apprentices who will be great employees for Pall Aerospace or even Pall Redruth alone,” he said.
“We are trying to create apprentices who have got the skills to do the job they are trained to do in any business and apply those skills anywhere.”
The approach has also produced a pipeline of management talent. More than half of the site’s current management team have progressed through an apprenticeship at Pall Aerospace or elsewhere, while around 40% of the site’s apprentices, past and present, remain with the business.
Daniel added the achievement demonstrated the value of acting on feedback from apprentices.
“One of the areas we focused on was where a mentor or supervisor meets regularly with an apprentice to track their learning and development,” he said.
“We were not doing as well in that as we thought we should have done, and it was a great wake up call for us that we were missing an opportunity.”
Pall Aerospace said it plans to continue developing its apprenticeship programme and share its approach with other employers in Cornwall, as well as colleagues across the wider Danaher group.
