Marshall to open second Skills Academy in Cranfield
Image courtesy Marshall
Located adjacent to Cranfield University’s campus, in a prime location at the heart of the UK’s eastern aerospace and defence cluster, the new site will make Marshall Skills Academy’s industry apprenticeship programmes available to businesses across the aviation and engineering sectors.
The decision to substantially boost Marshall Skills Academy’s capacity and geographical footprint was made in response to rapidly growing demand against the backdrop of an unprecedented global technical skills shortage.
In addition to its traditional apprenticeships offering, Marshall is also proposing that the new facility be home to one of the UK’s first University Technical College (UTC) “Sleeves,” a technical educational pathway which offers firsthand experience of engineering skills, delivered within an aerospace workshop, to secondary school pupils interested in careers in aviation or engineering from the age of 14 upwards. These proposals will form the basis of consultation with local schools in the area.
In April, recognising the existential risk posed by the chronic skills shortage and the need for immediate collective action, Marshall convened the inaugural Marshall Skills Summit at Cranfield University. The event gathered senior leaders from the aerospace industry, academia and public sector organisations including representatives from Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier, BAE Systems, British Airways, GKN, MBDA and Lockheed Martin, who all committed to playing a part in developing a sustainable future talent pipeline.
Marshall CEO Kathy Jenkins explained: “The level of attendance, engagement, and commitment from across the industry at our Skills Summit was exceptional. We are grateful to all who attended for giving us more than enough confidence to take a bold step and extend both our footprint and our provision for young people.
“Whilst we all recognised there is no quick fix to our skills challenge, we are all in complete agreement that we can do much more to make progress together.
“As the training arm of a business that has prepared well over 20,000 young people for technical careers over more than a century, Marshall Skills Academy is uniquely positioned to understand and respond to the problems facing the sector, but we certainly would not be taking this step without the support and collaboration of the wider industry.”
