I recently experienced my first National Apprenticeship Week, a nationwide event that brings together businesses and apprentices to showcase the powerful impact apprenticeships have on individuals, industries, and the wider economy.

Apprenticeships sit at the very heart of the classic and historic motoring sector. Heritage engineering skills developed and passed down are an increasingly treasured and rare commodity. While we champion these career pathways year-round, this dedicated week shines an even brighter spotlight on the opportunities apprenticeships can offer.

While StarterMotor doesn’t run apprenticeship programmes, we work hand-in-glove with the award-winning Heritage Skills Academy, often described as one of the industry’s best-kept secrets. HSA offer two programmes – mechanical, based out of Bicester Motion, and coach building which is run from Brooklands Museum - providing apprentices expert tuition on all aspects of maintenance and restoration by those who are able to intuitively translate the whirring’s of an internal combustion engine and work their magic with a wave of a 9/16” spanner.

We’re proud of our close partnership with the HSA, whose work with employers, apprentices, and industry leaders is instrumental to training the next generation of heritage engineers and promoting exciting career opportunities. Through this association we’re able to guide aspiring engineers to fulfil their career aspirations.

Several of our current and former StarterMotor Ambassadors, young volunteers who are the face of the Charity, are proud graduates of the Heritage Skills Academy. For example, take Coco who began his apprenticeship in November last year following experience we helped to facilitate, and Morgan, who recently stepped into a full-time role with the renowned William Heynes Limited.

As Morgan puts it “As a hands-on learner, an apprenticeship was the perfect option for me to combine the practical training and learning fundamental skills whilst working in a career which interested me.

Heritage Skills Academy complemented my learnings in the workplace with the highest level of explanations and demonstrations increasing my understanding of “why” I was doing things in a certain way.”

For Coco, when applying to the HSA apprenticeship programme “… the experiences from previous [StarterMotor] ‘Spanner Saturdays’ were invaluable when it came to searching for the few weeks of work experience that HSA asked for. Those few days of working on the fleet and helping out at shows were one of the main reasons why I got my first job; and it was eventually why my current boss, and incredibly patient sponsor, Tony from Middle-Barton Garage, even took me on.

Because of this, I can’t thank them enough for helping me get into what is quite literally my dream apprenticeship.”

These young people demonstrate exactly why apprenticeships matter. Heritage engineering relies on a skilled, passionate workforce and that workforce relies on a welcoming community. The two are symbiotic: without the community, there’s no skilled workforce. Without the workforce, there’s no community.

The future of classic and historic motoring, maintenance, and restoration is in safe and expert hands.

To find out more about pathways into heritage engineering apprenticeships, head over to the Heritage Skills Academy’s website.

🔗 https://www.heritageskillsacademy.co.uk/