Schools and colleges from Sussex and Surrey attended an Apprenticeships Career Day at London Gatwick. Gatwick as well as companies based at the airport - including easyJet, Skybreak, Boeing and Border Force spoke to students about their apprenticeship opportunities. We caught up with Alison Addy, London Gatwick's Head of External Engagement about the day and how important apprenticeships are to the airport and it's associated companies.
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00:00 Hi, I'm Alison Addy, I'm the Head of External Engagement and Policy at London Gatwick.
00:07 Well today is really exciting, this is our first ever campus wide apprenticeship event
00:18 at Gatwick. So for us this is a great opportunity to really inspire young people about a huge
00:25 range of opportunities at Gatwick and in aviation. What we've done this week, because it's National
00:31 Apprenticeships Week, is brought together lots of different employers from across the
00:35 campus and brought together students from local schools this morning and then we've
00:42 also got other adult visitors like Jobcentre Plus and other organisations coming this afternoon
00:47 as well as Employee Calling. So that we can really showcase those apprenticeship opportunities
00:53 in particular but this afternoon actually we'll be talking about other job opportunities
00:57 as well. Because for Gatwick it's really about that long term pipeline of talent for the
01:03 future and so we're doing everything we can to make sure that we're engaging with local
01:08 partners, with companies on airport but most importantly at the moment with local schools
01:14 because we want students to be making those decisions around subjects they want to study
01:21 but really raise their aspirations and see the wealth of opportunities available at the
01:26 airport.
01:27 If you just take today and the examples we've got today, we've got apprenticeships across
01:38 engineering, so London Gatwick has got a four year engineering apprenticeship that's been
01:45 running for 47 years now. It's very well established, working with the local college and so actually
01:53 we are launching this year's apprenticeship applications next week and that will be for
01:59 four new apprentices this year starting in August so look out for those adverts next
02:05 week because that is an amazing opportunity. We've got engineering apprentices here today
02:10 talking about their roles and they get to work in all sorts of different aspects of
02:14 engineering at the airport. They become a qualified technician and we've got loads of
02:19 examples of colleagues that are now in other roles, management roles and have really started
02:25 to build their careers with us.
02:27 Our UU is the first one to say it at this year's so definitely, that's what I'm going
02:32 to say, I love it.
02:33 We know that we've got a really important part to play in the local community and local
02:39 economy and so we work really hard to make sure we are playing our part in a positive
02:44 way. And even when you think about local employment, actually it's really important if you look
02:49 at the bigger picture of sustainability and making sure that we're reducing our impacts,
02:55 having local people that are able to access those local jobs by public transport and live
03:00 closer to work, those people then spending their wages in the local economy so it's all
03:06 part of that big picture of local success. Because what we want to happen is that as
03:12 the airport continues to thrive, people that live in the local community have access to
03:17 those great opportunities that come with having a great airport and a doorstep.
03:22 My name's Stuart and I'm a World Reforce Officer based here at London's Gatwick Airport.
03:31 Ross, what wrote quicker?
03:33 Well, probably the newer one.
03:35 You reckon?
03:37 Yeah, can you do one more?
03:38 Much faster.
03:40 And we've got three on the airport.
03:42 So today we're advertising Border Force to try and get people interested in joining us
03:46 when they reach age because obviously people who are here are young so we're trying to
03:51 get them to get ideas in their head that when they turn 18 there's a career here at Border
03:55 Force and at Gatwick Airport for them.
03:57 We've had quite a lot come up to us. Some are really interested, some are a bit distant
04:01 when they first come to us and then once they find out who we are and what we do they seem
04:05 to be quite keen. There's some for everybody at Border Force so whether people are into
04:10 investigating or they're into public facing or maybe more perhaps behind the scenes sort
04:14 of work, we seem to be able to find something that everybody's got an interest in.
04:19 And how much do you enjoy your role?
04:21 As you can tell I really like it. I've been in Border Force for two and a half years and
04:26 I wish I'd joined when I was a lot younger.
04:28 I'm Naomi, I'm the Passenger Services Manager at Skybreak at Gatwick. We are a passenger
04:34 facing desk at Gatwick representing, in partnership with Gatwick, helping passenger recovery.
04:40 What we're doing is doing a little bit of a networking event with the schools, colleges,
04:50 looking at people who are interested in hopefully travel with us and we can get them on board
04:56 for an apprenticeship if they're a school leaver or we can get them a kind of like an
04:59 internship if they're a college leaver.
05:01 And then you come back and this is where you're then considered a passenger.
05:08 I started off as an apprentice nine years ago, I'm now a manager. We have a few people
05:13 within the management that also were apprentices. We've got three people who have just finished
05:18 their apprenticeship and now they're fully qualified agents, they've got a full time
05:21 job, they were school and college leavers as well. So yeah, it's definitely a good company
05:26 to work for, especially in partnership with Gatwick as well.
05:29 Hi, I'm Abby, I'm a third year engineering apprentice here at Gatwick.
05:37 Hi, I'm Joe, I'm a fourth year engineering apprentice at Gatwick Airport.
05:40 I love the staff, because we didn't take off we need to get ourselves back on tour.
05:45 It's been really important for me, so I came straight out of GCC and did this rather than
05:49 going to college and it's taught me not only have I got my qualifications, but it's also
05:53 taught me all the hands on skills I need for industry. It's also helped me build my confidence
05:58 levels, communication, various other skills that I need to be in the right place, it's
06:02 been really important.
06:03 Yeah, more social skills I think, because I'm going around seeing everyone, meeting new
06:09 people and also they're all teaching me their skills as well, so getting skill based knowledge
06:14 and also social skills as well, so yeah it's been good.
06:17 They're really important things and I think they help young people so much, I think, so
06:27 important, getting you ready for industry, getting the qualifications you need, but also
06:30 life skills, I think it's a really good route to go down and I would encourage it to anyone
06:34 else.
06:35 Cody Ferreira, Oakland School.
06:40 Lewis Collier, Oakland School.
06:43 So we're here today to discuss and find out exactly what we should do with apprenticeships
06:49 and what they're about and the routes we could take and possible job offers we could get
06:55 once we complete them.
06:56 I'm looking at doing a level 3 electromechanical engineering at East Surrey, so it's definitely
07:08 something that ties in with Boeing and London Gatwick over there, so yeah that's my plans
07:13 and what I'm looking for.
07:14 Yeah I'm doing very similar to him at East Surrey but I'm thinking about doing one of
07:17 the apprenticeships there.
07:18 Yes, good morning, my name is Vanessa Shook, I work for Eastshire Engineering here at Gatwick
07:27 and I'm an ex-mechanic working in the engineering department.
07:33 The interaction has been really good, I think there's definitely been a lot of interest
07:37 in the engineering apprenticeship that we offer and just generally a really good interest
07:42 in aviation and STEM related, science related sort of jobs that are on offer here today
07:48 which is really good, it's really nice to see.
07:50 So we offer an Eastshire Engineering apprenticeship and this apprenticeship lasts two years approximately
08:02 and the first nine to ten months we are offering food and accommodation at our Luton Academy
08:10 where students will be based and will be doing their classroom training and examination for
08:15 the CAT A licence essentially and then during that time they're going to be doing all their
08:22 examinations beforehand and then afterwards they'll be doing their workshop training and
08:27 getting all the skills and hand skills needed to be an aircraft engineer essentially.
08:32 After that they'll be going to one of our bases and we have a really vast wide network
08:39 of different maintenance bases across England they'll be able to go to to continue their
08:44 apprenticeship and get the practical experience working on aircraft.
08:53 I think the apprenticeship is extremely important, on one hand it obviously encourages young
08:58 minds to go further and become the next generation of engineers for us which is great for us
09:05 because we've been getting loads and loads of new planes, we are massively increasing
09:09 our fleet across the board so we need the people to work on it and what better way to
09:13 do it than to train our own in-house future engineers.
09:19 I've done the apprenticeship myself so I can really vouch for it and really say it's
09:24 been a really good experience because you learn and then later on you don't only learn
09:29 in the classroom but you actually learn in a more practical sense and I think people
09:34 just learn better when they see things, learning while doing is the best way.
09:39 Because you've got the River Mall which is very close to the airport we have to make
09:48 sure that the water is drawn out of it.
09:50 Awesome.
09:51 [BLANK_AUDIO]