This week, to celebrate National Apprenticeship Week, we treated our current apprentices to a free lunch, and we sat down with some of them and their recently qualified colleagues to hear their experiences at Triton.

Our Triton employees come from a diverse range of backgrounds and disciplines – it’s what makes us such a great team. Many of our team joined us as apprentices or have developed during their time with us through extra courses and education funded by Triton.

With this year’s theme of National Apprenticeship Week being ‘Skills For Life’, we asked how they think their training has helped them to prepare for a career.

Reuben Ellis, one of our trainee design engineers, shared his experience.

“I spend roughly half my time designing, improving, and prototyping, and the other half testing new products and benchmarking competitor products.

I’ve been very interested in engineering and learning how things work since a young age. When I was offered my apprenticeship here at Triton, I was very keen to start as my job allows me to follow the whole manufacturing process from initial design through to testing and product launch. This allows me to develop broad skills for each step of the process.”

Lewis Brocklehurst (Product Design and Development) told us that he’d always been interested in design and hands-on work. “Triton are a market leading and well-established company; it would benefit me to be a part of the team and learn.”

Lewis and many of the other apprentices all told us that the practical experience was the most useful part of their training. Kate Blakemore (Trainee HR & Business Support Administrator) said that “the apprenticeship with Triton is a good opportunity for me to gain working experience and gain a qualification – and HR was a career interest of mine.

I’ve found learning on the job and being more involved in HR work (…) the most useful as [it] provides me with general knowledge and experience.”

Building skills for life isn’t about learning on your own, however. We asked some of our apprentices what other support they found particularly useful.

One of our Business Administrators who completed their apprenticeship with us said that the “continued support of management and team leaders really helped to support my learning; pushing me out of my comfort zone and helping me develop new skills that I can transfer to other roles in the business.”

Emmaleigh Thornton (Technical Apprentice) commented that “it’s truly an amazing opportunity with a wide range of work activities – and is a very helpful and positive environment to complete your training in. I really recommend completing your apprenticeship here!”

We’re thrilled to support a wide range of study subjects – from finance to design, and human resources to manufacturing practises. We’re also proud to offer further and continuous training to help up-skill our team and support them through qualifications that represent their technical know-how. For example, our LEAPT program aims to upskill our operations team to teach best practises for lean manufacturing.

“I enjoy learning new things, so I thought I’d try something different.” One LEAPT apprentice shared with us. Many shared how they felt the qualification would give them skills for the future, using the qualification for personal growth as well as how it could make a positive difference in their working lives.

“I really enjoyed working as a team and finding solutions,” shared one LEAPT apprentice, with another sharing that the training helped them to build a closer connection with their colleagues. Building skills for life in the LEAPT program is also about giving our apprentices skills that are vital for outside the workplace too. One LEAPT apprentice shared how they found receiving Functional Skills Training and computer literacy support helpful for both the course and for wider work and life.

Triton also supports higher education qualifications across a whole range of skills, including marketing, customer service, and management.

Callum McCurry (Test & Development engineer) recently achieved his Level 4 HND in Engineering (with a Distinction, no less.) Callum joined Triton at just 18 years old, and over the last 4 years has undertaken a range of internal training, as well as courses funded by Triton to help complete his qualification.

“Being able to hone my practical skills over the years has helped not only at work in my day-to-day job, but also in my personal life when renovating my house.” Callum remarked. We struggled to think of much else that could truly qualify as a life-skill like renovating your own home!

Finally, we asked our wonderful participants what advice they’d have for those thinking of starting an apprenticeship with Triton.

“A four-year apprenticeship may feel like a long time, but at the end, you will have gained skills that will set you up for life.” Callum shared.

Emmaleigh told us that “Triton is a fantastic company which allows you to gain plenty of work experience whilst still working towards different qualifications.”

Learning is a vital part of our personal growth, and mistakes can help us to recognise where we need to improve and encourage us to better ourselves. One of our LEAPT apprentices said, “don’t be afraid to express your opinion, ideas, and most importantly accept it when you are wrong – look for solutions!”

Our Business Administrator also spoke of their experience with mistakes and progression:

“Don’t be afraid to dive in headfirst into anything new, the best way to learn is through experience. Don’t get discouraged if you make a lot of mistakes as long as you learn from them. Eventually it’ll be second nature to you.”

You can learn more about National Apprenticeship Week at the official website here: https://naw.appawards.co.uk/

And you can find any apprenticeships that Triton is hiring for on our website careers page here: https://www.tritonshowers.co.uk/jobs