West Midlands toolmaking firm HCM Engineering has retained Gold ‘Excellent Employer’ status in the Next Gen Makers Engineering Apprenticeships: Employer Accreditation, recognising a family business whose commitment to apprentices stretches back more than four decades.
The news lands alongside two individual milestones. Apprentice Jamie Beddall has officially completed his apprenticeship after almost five years with the company, while Jack Gleadow has successfully finished the second year of his own training programme.
Established in 1969 and based in Stourbridge, HCM Engineering employs 17 people and designs and manufactures precision die-cast tooling for customers including Lotus, Aston Martin, McLaren and Mercedes.
Today, three-quarters of its workforce have come through the company’s own apprenticeship scheme, a figure that reflects just how embedded training is within the business.
A recognition built on apprentice experience
The Next Gen Makers Engineering Apprenticeships: Employer Accreditation, backed by strategic partner and national manufacturing body Make UK, is grounded in the direct experience of current apprentices rather than policy documents alone.
Gold ‘Excellent Employer’ status, HCM’s tier of recognition, is reserved for employers who consistently deliver a high standard of apprentice support and development. HCM retaining that status for a second time shows this is a sustained commitment, not a one-off achievement.
A family business, not just a family name
For HCM, apprenticeships sit at the heart of a wider culture of family ownership. Managing Director Mike Hanson explains:
“Our apprenticeship scheme has always been about more than just qualifications. It’s about building careers, developing talent and investing in the future of our industry — something that’s been part of the fabric of this family business since the early 1980s.
“It genuinely takes a team, and our mentors, managers and colleagues all play their part in making it happen.
“We are acutely aware of the national engineering skills shortage affecting the industry, but due to our long-term commitment to growing our own talent, we are simply not impacted by this in the same way that other engineering firms are. This is of huge benefit to the business.”
What this means for other engineering employers
HCM’s story offers a clear lesson for engineering and manufacturing employers across England:
• Consistency builds credibility. Sustaining an apprenticeship culture over decades, not campaigns, is what earns lasting Gold recognition.
• Culture shapes outcomes. A genuine family atmosphere, embedded from ownership down, gives apprentices reasons to stay, progress and eventually help train the next generation themselves.
HCM Engineering’s continued Gold ‘Excellent Employer’ status is a strong example of what is possible when apprenticeship investment becomes part of a company’s identity rather than a policy on a shelf or CSR activity.
With a team of just 17, HCM also proves that company size is no barrier to running apprenticeships well. It is a welcome reminder that accreditation rewards consistency as much as ambition.
Find out how the Best Practice Programme can help your business build a stronger apprenticeship scheme, or how your business could get recognised with the Engineering Apprenticeships: Employer Accreditation.