Apprenticeship success for JCB
JCB design engineer Holly Broadhurst crowned the UK’s top Higher and Degree Apprentice
JCB design engineer Holly Broadhurst is celebrating after being crowned the UK’s top Higher and Degree Apprentice. The 22-year-old beat off competition from hundreds of other contenders to land the accolade at the National Apprenticeships Awards in London.
Holly joined JCB as a Higher Apprentice aged 16 after studying at the JCB Academy in Rocester, Staffordshire. She went on to take a two-year foundation degree before studying for two more years for a B.Eng degree in Mechanical Engineering.
Having graduated last year, Holly now works at JCB Compact Products in Cheadle, Staffordshire, where she is part of the team designing JCB’s award winning mini-excavator range.
Holly was among the first intake at the JCB Academy in September 2010 – a £22 million state school for 14- to 18-year-old students aspiring to become the engineers of the future.
JCB chairman Lord Bamford spearheaded the project and since it opened almost 1,500 students have been educated there.
Holly said: ‘I’ve learnt and gained so much more than I ever thought possible through my apprenticeship at JCB. I look at my friends who went to university and they are only just getting the workplace experience now.
‘I would advise anyone considering an apprenticeship to go for it 110% – it may seem nerve-wracking to go straight into a job, but it is so worth it in the long run.’
Lord Bamford, who began his career as an engineering apprentice in 1962, has been the driving force behind JCB’s investment in apprentices and over the past five years around 250 have joined the company under its ‘Young Talent’ programme – with more than 100 set to be recruited in 2017.
Congratulating Holly on her award, he said: ‘I’m delighted that Holly has been recognized at a national level. Engineering was in my blood from a very early age and nothing pleases me more than seeing other engineers being rewarded at a very young age for their passion and hard work.’
JCB were one of the first engineering employers in the UK to offer Higher Apprenticeships in engineering to provide a pathway to study up to degree level while working.
Since their introduction in 2012 around 60 JCB apprentices have gone on to take foundation degrees. Like Holly, many have already completed their full degrees and scores of others are expected to graduate with Bachelor of Engineering degrees in the next two years.
Miles Pixley, JCB’s general manager for technical & professional development, said: ‘Holly is a wonderful advocate for the Higher Apprenticeship route, which offers young people the opportunity of real paid work while they learn on the job, avoiding the need to take out student loans which have to be paid back in later life.’
