Industrial Process Engineer Apprentice in Glasgow

Location: Glasgow, United Kingdom

Thales is a global technology leader with more than 83,000 employees on five continents. With over 7,500 people in the UK, operating across defence, space, aerospace, and digital security, we help build a future we can all trust.

Start Date: 16th August 2027 (This is a mandatory requirement for college induction)

Salary: £24,000 per annum

Employee type: Permanent

Working Schedule: Monday – Thursday, 37 hours a week (9.25 hours Monday – Thursday)

If you're passionate about manufacturing and engineering, eager to learn, and looking for an apprenticeship that combines academic study with exciting on‑the‑job experience, we'd love to hear from you.

Benefits of the programme:

• Earn a salary while studying
• Gain hands-on experience in a real engineering environment
• Receive job-specific training and development
• Achieve a recognised qualification
• Secure a permanent role from the start of your apprenticeship
• Have your tuition fees fully paid

About the Role:

As an Industrial Process Engineer Apprentice, you will develop the technical knowledge, practical skills and professional behaviours needed to become a confident and capable Industrial Process Engineer. Working as part of our Industry team, you will support the delivery of products and equipment solutions, ensuring projects are completed on time and within budget.

Key responsibilities / engineering exposure:

• Define, develop, and optimise manufacturing documentation, tools, and workflows.
• Perform manufacturing readiness reviews.
• Support technological innovation aimed at reducing cost and improving processes/workflows.
• Ensure the manufacturing process is feasible and reproducible.

What You Will Learn:

• Develop an understanding of the required behaviours and codes of practice of a professional engineer.
• Understanding complex systems by working on different tasks on ongoing projects.
• Assessing Manufacturing Readiness Level (MRL) of products by reviewing the product maturity with project teams to identify and minimise risk.
• Define, set up, prepare and optimise manufacturing processes and tooling for a defined area or product line.
• Contribute to Health, Safety and Environment processes.
• Define and optimise manufacturing documentation, tools, workflows for manufacturing and inspection based on the information supplied by upstream R&D engineering departments.
• Contribute to the technological innovation to reduce costs and workflows, whilst guaranteeing the feasibility and reproducibility of the process.
• Attend Material Review Boards and Configuration Control Boards on behalf of manufacturing, actively manage failures and changes.
• Implement test & control plans for manufacturing equipment.
• Implement Design for Execution (DfX) solutions to our products and processes.
• Implement Advanced Product Quality Planning (APQP) tools such as Process Flow / Product Failure Mode Effect Analysis (PfMEA) and control plans.

Apprenticeship Programme:

Throughout this apprenticeship you will study towards an HNC in Engineering with a local training provider, with the opportunity to top up to a full degree qualification via our university partner. Training will be delivered via a blended learning model of on‑campus delivery and remote learning, over a 4‑year duration.

To apply, you will need:

• 3 Highers at Grade C or above including Mathematics and Physics/Engineering Science.
• 5 National 5s Grade A-C including English and Maths.

Please note that applicants who are not sitting their Highers in their year of application may be required to complete a Maths assessment prior to an unconditional offer being made.

Benefits:

• Competitive salary of £24,000 per annum.
• Performance‑related pay uplifts.
• Holiday entitlement of 201 hours a year (plus a company day and bank holidays).
• Contributory Company Pension.
• Health Care Cash Plan.
• Hybrid/flexible working options.
• Employee assistance programme.
• Learning and development support.
• Employee discounts and wellbeing initiatives.
• Life Cover.
• 80 Hours Volunteering per year (first two years).

Because of the work we do at Thales, all roles are subject to security requirements. To be considered for this position, you must have the permanent right to work in the UK and be able to successfully complete and maintain UK Government security checks.

Closing date: Our applications will close at 11.59pm on Wednesday 17 February 2027. Please note, we will be in contact by the end of February 2027 with details of next steps.

Thales is an equal opportunities employer and diversity, and inclusion are integral to the success of Thales. We are committed to creating a workplace where everyone feels valued for who they are and the unique strengths they bring.