Leeds Manufacturing Live Event at the UTC in Leeds

What an event! Last Friday morning our Managing Director, Craig Burton, chaired the Leeds Manufacturing Live event which took place at the UTC in Leeds. The room was filled with 100 Year 11 students who all have a passion for manufacturing and engineering and they grilled a panel of manufacturing experts in a Dragons Den role reversal!

Amongst the panel were Chris Black from Sound Leisure, Ben Wilson from MPM, Graeme Hall from Brandon Medical and David Noble from ESG along with 4 apprentices from each of these businesses. The room had a real buzz about it, even at 8.00am in the morning! The students asked some fantastic questions, some of which sparked a great debate, and we had to cut the questions short in the end as we were running out of time.

Here are some of our favourites:-

“What is good about working for your business?”

“We have an awesome team, and so many different roles to choose from.” MPM

“Our motto is 1 team, 1 mission. We work together and it’s always fun. You can grow yourself, develop and learn how a business works.” ESG

“What do you look for when recruiting an apprentice?”

“We look for enthusiastic and interesting people. People who are interested in your business and want to progress as part of your team.” ESG

“We look for a positive attitude and a bit of ba ba boom! We’ll always recruit on gut feeling, especially if we can see potential in somebody.” MPM

“How stressful is an apprenticeship”

“It can be stressful, but the good thing about an apprenticeship is that you have a manager or a mentor who can pass on their skills and give you support at all times.” ESG

“Are machines taking all our manufacturing jobs?”

“No. Jobs are just changing. Machines are good at taking away jobs that some people don’t want to do, or doing the dangerous jobs for us. One of the great things about manufacturing is that we are changing all the time and new roles are always being created. Machinery opens up a load of new roles as they regularly need maintaining and fixing.” Brandon Medical

It was a really great morning, we were overwhelmed yet again at the passion and enthusiasm that these students showed about a career in manufacturing. It’s so inspiring to see a room packed of 15 year old children who already have an idea what they want to do in their career and to see the buzz in the audience. An absolute pleasure to chair, and we are now looking forward to the next event in Bradford this week!