Weston College Group has opened a £4 million training facility in Filton, near Bristol, with almost 800 apprentices already signed up. The Advanced Manufacturing Technical Excellence College (Amtec) lets over-16s train alongside major aerospace and engineering employers, including Airbus, GKN, Rolls-Royce and BAE Systems, on an employer-led curriculum.

The opening, confirmed by the BBC, follows Weston College Group's designation as one of the country's Technical Excellence Colleges, which enables additional investment in training for high-demand sectors, with Amtec one of four new campuses of its kind opening nationally.

Weston College Group, based in Weston-super-Mare, is a further and higher education college with a latest annual turnover of £74 million, holding a Good rating at its most recent Ofsted inspection. Amtec's partner employers include Airbus, GKN, Rolls-Royce and BAE Systems, all established aerospace and defence manufacturers with existing operations in the Bristol area.

The structural driver behind Amtec is direct employer co-design of the curriculum, with apprentices learning skills mapped to the specific production needs of aerospace firms based on-site, rather than a generic engineering syllabus applied across multiple industries.

Janet Stevens, deputy chief executive of Weston College Group, said the region has "some of the world's leading aerospace and engineering companies right on our doorstep," adding that the college has "the responsibility to help develop the workforce they need for the future."

Holly Lewis, a GKN apprentice training at Amtec, said she is currently "fitting and doing wing assembly," with the goal of eventually working "on live aircraft."

John Shawcroft, a Rolls-Royce apprentice who spent three years working at a chocolate factory before applying, said he was "really enjoying the little bit of machine maintenance" he did there, and that Amtec's facilities "blew me away" when he started looking at apprenticeships.

For the sector, Amtec's opening confirms that further education colleges are increasingly building single-site, employer-embedded campuses for aerospace and manufacturing training, rather than delivering apprenticeship provision across separate general engineering departments.

Source: bbc.com / gov.uk