Employers

This flexible route for working engineers enables them to gain the necessary academic qualifications and develop the required competence to apply for registration whilst still at work. It has been developed with the involvement of Sector Skills Councils.

Benefits to the Employer include:

• An increase in the number of in-company professionally qualified engineers
• A flexible way of meeting company and employee aspirations, without losing engineers from the workplace
• A learning programme tailored to the needs of the employer
• Potential for knowledge exchange with the university
• Applicable to all – large companies as well as SMEs

Benefits to the Employee include:

• A workplace route to achieving the required academic qualifications for Chartered status
• Linking employees' learning and professional development to your workplace activities
• No loss of earnings as employees will ‘learn whilst earning’

The employer’s role is to:

• contribute to development of the Learning Contract/learning programme
• provide suitable workplace activity at a level to enable your employee participants to meet their aims
• provide mentoring support by professionally qualified staff.

A range of employers is involved including:  Ashdale Engineering, Atkins, CAV Aerospace Ltd, Corus Tubes, Deans Systems, Delphi Diesel Aftermarket, DHL, Defence System & Technology Laboratory (DSTL), F.G.Wilson, Gamit Ltd, Lerch Bates, Ministry of Defence, Perkins Engines, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME), Xerox.

Employers can get involved by contacting one of the partner universities or ECUK.

What employers say

One senior manager expressed his support for the programme as follows:

“My feedback is very simple ... It's simply fantastic that we can now recognise  and support through professional development and work-based learning those individuals who deliver tremendous value and skill to our organisations, despite not having had the opportunity to attend universities for whatever reason, via this programme.

We should never overlook the fact that some of our best and most capable individuals achieve their knowledge and skill-sets in the work-place, and we can now, through work-based development, not only give them the professional recognition they deserve, but add value to our organisations at the same time.”

Read ‘The Employers Perspective’ by Ray Flower, Training Manager at KLM Engineering, Norwich.