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School of Thought
Quick overview
** HOT OFF THE PRESS **
Apprenticeship Central & School of Thought Join Forces to Tackle Automotive Skills Shortage
Apprenticeship Central and School of Thought are collaborating to attract, inspire, and retain the next generation of automotive talent.
With strong roots in schools and youth engagement, School of Thought raises awareness of careers in the automotive and body repair sectors. Apprenticeship Central then bridges the gap from interest to action—helping businesses recruit, place, and retain high-quality apprentices.
“There’s no one-size-fits-all solution to the skills crisis,” said Eleanor Baker Barnes, Commercial Director at Apprenticeship Central. “By aligning awareness, access and action, we can drive real change.”
Dave Reece, Founder of School of Thought, added: “Early engagement is vital. This partnership helps turn student interest into real career opportunities.”
Together, they aim to support more young people into meaningful automotive careers and help employers build stronger, future-ready teams.
Contact Info
Apprenticeship Central – Eleanor Baker Barnes (enquire@apprenticeship-central.co.uk | 07496 571590)
www.apprenticeship-central.co.uk
School of Thought – Dave Reece (dave@ready4work.uk | 07841 910014)
www.schoolofthoughtautomotive.co.uk
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The School of Thought was established in 2019 to support young people in understanding and knowing about the opportunities that the Automotive Industry has to offer. We knew that to be able to do this we had to connect with education so we could spread the message to more people.
We are STEM ambassadors as well as School of Thought Ambassadors and this enables us to get involved in all sorts of different activities from mock interviews, writing CV’s, speed networking, presentations, and Q&A sessions. We also get invited directly from Schools and Colleges.
Our aim simply is to engage with young people, through inspiring, engaging and attracting people into the world of automotive.
We do this by:
✔ Dispelling myths about the industry, making sure people don’t think it’s oily, greasy, and dirty, that its forward thinking, ever changing, with businesses offering state of the art technology and premises
✔ Letting people know about the hundreds of different roles available. You don’t have to be technically minded, you don’t even need to be a petrol head, our industry needs fresh talent with great ideas. We are a diverse and inclusive industry who need people from all communities, all walks of life to make our industry sustainable for future generations.
✔ Sharing success stories from people who love working in automotive. We do this at educational events, at exhibitions and at the British Motorshow every year in August, and through our ambassador network.
What is our mission?
You may have begun your final year of taking exams. Maybe you are considering sixth form, college or university or you may just be thinking about all the options available to you. We know that this can be a difficult, scary, and confusing time and so we are here to help. Let us explain a bit more about what automotive has to offer.
Automotive covers so many different types of vehicles including cars, vans, lorries, caravans, motorhomes, horseboxes, specialised vehicles such as refrigerated vehicles and motorsport. Basically, whatever can be driven, our Industry deals with it in one way or another.
Our industry has engineers, designers, social media experts, human resource and health & safety specialists, and accountants. If your passion is about people, or repairing vehicles, or selling, improving processes, or creating websites, we have a role for you. There are over 300 different roles in automotive. It’s not all spanners and spray guns!
If you have finished education and are still unsure of what to do or want to change your career path, then a career in automotive may be what you are looking for? It’s exciting, evolving, ever changing and no two days are the same. If that sounds like something you want to do then check out some of the profiles of roles available.
>> Check out our website to learn more about the roles available
AWE24
We know young people often struggle finding opportunities for work experience, this can be due to where you live, who you know, knowing what’s available in your area or most of the time it’s because you may not know what you really want to do when you leave education.
We have created AWE24 which is a programme dedicated to work experience in Automotive.
This programme will give you a taste of what automotive has to offer, helping you gain those important employability skills which will make you more attractive to employers. It will help you understand how it works, how it all fits in together, it will give you practical experience and hopefully some inspiration about what to do when starting your career journey.
These are some of the qualities and skills which an employer will look for when you do work experience. Their aim is to help you gain confidence, increase your knowledge, improve your self-belief, and give you hope that there is a career path for you in automotive.
- Being punctual
- Communicate clearly
- Customer focus
- Positive attitude
- Problem solving
- Respect each other
- Self-belief
- Self-management
- Staying safe
- Taking Responsibility
- Using Initiative
- Working in a team
Additional information about your company
Want to find out more?
So, if you want to step into a showroom to find out about selling cars, or work in a parts department, or as a vehicle technician servicing and repairing vehicles, in an office environment, a call centre, in a distribution centre, or even in marketing and social media then we can help you find a work experience placement which suits you.
>> For more information please visit
Don’t worry if you can’t find anything at the moment, keep checking as it is being updated all the time.
You can also contact us at dave@ready4work.uk or julie@ready4work.uk registering your interest.
