TEES Valley Mayor Ben Houchen kicked off National Apprenticeship Week by calling on business leaders to back apprentices – as new figures show more than 1,500 companies have been helped to do so.

Since 2016, the Tees Valley Mayor and Combined Authority have supported the creation of 1,757 apprentices at 1,525 businesses thanks to £4.8million of funding.

There is still support available to create apprenticeships, both through grant funding and wider assistance from Tees Valley Business, established by Mayor Houchen to provide easy to access advice, support, grants and loans to help businesses.

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One such firm to benefit from help from the team was Render Alarms, which previously secured apprenticeship funding in 2017 but recently needed more help to connect with a course supplier to help it train its apprentices and take more on.

The firm, which has been operating since 1981, designs, installs and maintains fire and security systems.

It currently employs three apprentices and three more engineers have recently completed their apprenticeships with the company.

Tees Valley Business connected the company to the Education Training Collective (The Etc) which incorporates Stockton Riverside College, Redcar and Cleveland College, Bede Sixth Form College, NETA Training and the Skills Academy.

This prompted Redcar and Cleveland College to introduce a Fire, Emergency and Security Systems course which Render Alarms’ three apprentices enrolled in, as well as six others from across the region.

Mike Dickons, IT Manager at Render Alarms, said: “It fills us with pride to see them develop, fresh out of school and having never held a screwdriver in their hands, to being fully competent engineers going out on their first job."

Mayor Houchen said: “Apprentices are a brilliant way for people of all ages to earn while they learn and go on to secure good-quality, well-paid jobs – whether they are just out of education or looking for a change of career."

 

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