Craft and keyboard: The trainees mastering tech and age-old skills

Ollie Priestley is not just doing any mechanical apprenticeship.

Working at specialist car restoration business Tolman, Priestley, 29, has embarked on a “heritage vehicle technician” apprenticeship. He’s learning the skills to work on modern classic cars that need a mix of traditional and new techniques to restore.

New technologies are enabling those techniques – from computer-aided design (CAD) for new vehicle components, to 3D printing them, as well as learning the intricacies of a car’s electronic control units.

“I wanted to develop the skills that allowed me to work on the cars that I love and excite me, like the Peugeot 205 GTi,” says Leicestershire-based Priestley.

“Getting to know how to make things keeps me focused and engaged. I’ve just fabricated a gearbox mount for a classic BMW. It’s cool to know that the things I create will bring the car back to life.”

Tolman founder Chris Tolman says what Priestley is learning sets him apart from apprentices in mainstream car dealerships, who, due to digital tools, are increasingly becoming “just fitters”.

“The computer identifies the issue and they swap the part. For specialist car businesses, our technicians need to identify and understand a problem, and then be creative and innovative to find the answer,” says Tolman, who is based in Warwickshire.

Tolman’s point highlights an important question hanging over how trade apprentices are being taught today, as technology plays an increasingly bigger role.

As a result, apprenticeships are moving up the education value chain.

For example, Priestley’s three-year apprenticeship, which he is doing through the Heritage Skills Academy in Bicester (HSA), was introduced in 2018 to incorporate 3D printing and CAD amongst other digital skills, alongside essential skills like welding and glazing.

It is a level three apprenticeship offering the equivalent of three A-levels. It replaces the previous level two and three “classic vehicle framework” apprenticeship.

HSA managing director John Pitchforth says it’s “radically improved” as it combines “modern technology with engineering fundamentals”.

Government apprenticeship data also shows that the number of people starting level two intermediate apprenticeships have fallen by nearly a quarter over the past year, in favour of people starting higher level apprenticeships – level four to seven.

Level six and seven respectively equate to bachelors and masters degrees. Level three apprenticeship numbers have remained stable.

But with tech having a growing influence over the curriculum, are apprentices now just learning how to run computer software, at the expense of the actual skills of a specific trade?

HSA’s Pitchforth argues that the organisation’s apprentices come out highly skilled – perhaps more so than those from other programmes.

“When modern engineers come to us to transfer into our sector, they often lack the basic engineering principles and are unable to diagnose and repair vehicle systems without a computer telling them what’s wrong,” he says.

Chris Iveson is CEO of FourJaw Manufacturing Analytics, a platform for industrial businesses to gain production monitoring data. He is based in Sheffield, where FourJaw works with a number of local businesses.

“The modern apprentice is increasingly learning two things at once: the practical skill of making, and the digital skill of using technology to understand what is happening in production,” explains Iveson.

“That might include CNC programming (coding for automated tools), CAD, robotics, additive manufacturing, quality control systems and production monitoring, all of which now appear in modern engineering and manufacturing apprenticeship routes.”

But he warns that if training becomes too narrow, apprentices can end up lacking a proper understanding of materials, methods, tooling, quality and process.

Just down the road from FourJaw in the city centre is scissor-maker Ernest Wright. Operating since 1902, it’s one of just two scissor-makers left in the city, which once boasted a blade manufacturing industry of over 100 workshops.

Now just Ernest Wright, and William Whiteley, located on the other side of town, remain.

While Ernest Wright is proud of its long history, its the latest manufacturing technology that has helped it create a niche in the market for scissors and shears.

Working with the University of Sheffield, the firm introduced 3D metal printing to make new product development a faster and less expensive process. Now it can create highly accurate prototypes to then be made via traditional methods.

The company used 3D metal printing to revive its 1960s “nurseryman scissors”, and now uses it to create a new product each year, largely based on vintage designs.

“Now we can make just six pairs of scissors through metal printing [as tests]. Then if we want to change things, we don’t have to do it on 6,000 pairs,” says Paul Jacobs who bought the company in 2018 along with fellow-Dutchman Jan-Bart Fanoy.

For trainee Elliott Nurcombe, who has worked part-time at Ernest Wright for the past three years alongside his aerospace engineering degree, the chance to work with such technology has added an exciting extra element to learning a trade he was already intrigued by.

“Maintenance wise, a lot of the parts for our machines simply don’t exist anymore, so using modern technologies like CAD and 3D printing, we’ve been able to replicate some,” says Nurcombe, 21.

“But I don’t think that technology will take over or overshadow what goes on in this workshop. In terms of actual production of what we make here and what we do day to day, there’s no real opportunity for technology to take that over from the people that work here.”

At Whiteley, which has been running since 1760, 3D printing has also revitalised the business after a change of ownership in 2024. Sally Ward, an 11th generation of the Whiteley family, and her husband Jeremy retired, and sold the business to manufacturing company Kaymich.

Managing director Mark White is considering using new materials like reclaimed titanium, but is taking a measured approach to introducing further technology, in an effort to preserve the craftsmanship behind Whiteley scissors.

“At the moment I’m looking to recruit trainee scissor manufacturers, as opposed to looking to put people out of work by investing in more technology,” says White.

“What we’re not about is loading something on a machine and pressing a button.”

Back in Sheffield city centre at Platts & Nisbett, makers of surgical instruments, the process now includes CNC at the first stage, which is when a software programme directs machinery to cut the components. They are then fitted and finished by hand.

Each instrument is also now laser tagged so it can be traced back to Platts & Nisbett, regardless of what hospital it ends up in.

Recruiting the next generation of crafts people, though, hasn’t been straightforward as the rise of technology has shifted many people’s interests that way.

“There will be an abundance of people who want to press buttons. It’s getting someone who likes to work with their hands, other than computers,” says business development manager Julie Topham.