More than 500 new apprenticeships are to be offered this year by defence company BAE systems in the UK, in the wake of a campaign by the Unite trade union.
The company is now training more than 2,000 apprentices, making up 6% of its workforce, with a further 574 due to be recruited in September. The apprenticeships last for three to four years and enable trainees to go on to university degrees.
“These are exactly the high-quality apprenticeships that Unite has been campaigning for as part of a manufacturing strategy that harnesses the potential of all our young men and women,” said Unite general secretary Len McCluskey. “It is good see that in a traditionally male-dominated sector, over a quarter of BAE’s record number of apprentices are women. While there is clearly a way to go, this step in the right direction shows that Unite’s campaign to encourage more women into science and engineering is having an impact.”
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Photo credit: UCL engineering