News: AMRC apprentice is the face of Global Manufacturing Festival

Sam Biddleston, who is training at The University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) with Boeing in Rotherham, is being featured in the publicity for the prestigious Global Manufacturing Festival being held in Sheffield next month.

Up to six apprentices are taken on at the AMRC on the Advanced Manufacturing Park each year. The apprenticeship programme has been running for five years and so far 11 have completed the programme. One is working in industry and the other ten are working as technicians and engineers within the AMRC and Nuclear AMRC.

17-year-old Sam from Sprotborough, said: "Since starting my apprenticeship last year, I've found the work very interesting and have learned valuable skills for my later career. Thanks to the good relations between all the partner companies, the AMRC is giving me opportunities that I wouldn't have at other places."

From next autumn, the AMRC will be taking 200 apprentices a year into the new Advanced Manufacturing Institute Training Centre - based in purpose-built facilities alongside the current AMRC campus. The Training Centre will provide high-level engineering apprentice training for manufacturing companies of all sizes across the Sheffield city region.

Professor Keith Ridgway CBE, executive dean of the Advanced Manufacturing Institute, said: "Our apprentices play a key role in the AMRC, working alongside our researchers and industrial partners and gaining experience at the cutting edge of manufacturing technology.

"Sam and our other apprentices are laying solid foundations for their careers, whether they go on to work in industry when they are qualified or continue into higher study and research.

"Our new Training Centre, opening next year, will work with local businesses to give 200 young people a year the same opportunity to build a great career in high value manufacturing."

The Global Manufacturing Festival is for businesses operating in the high technology, high quality, export led manufacturing supply chains. It includes a number of high profile events around the Sheffield city region in March.

Global Manufacturing Festival website
AMRC website

Images: globalmanufacturingfestival.com