Redditch-based Samuel Taylor Limited (STL) has been awarded Gold ‘Excellent Employer’ status in the Next Gen Makers Engineering Apprenticeships: Employer Accreditation, recognising a scheme that has developed home-grown engineers for more than three decades.
Founded in 1899, STL specialises in bi-metal bonding and precision stamping for the electrical contact market. Its products reach customers across four continents, in sectors including EV, rail, subsea and aerospace.
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 experience of apprentices themselves. The assessment is weighted 90% towards the Apprentice Satisfaction Survey, with the remaining 10% coming from an employer benchmarking questionnaire.
Gold ‘Excellent Employer’ status recognises employers that consistently deliver a high standard of apprentice support and development.
A scheme built over three decades
STL apprentices follow a dedicated plan of learning within the company, alongside off-the-job training with training provider Hereford and Worcester Group Training Association. Much of the first year is spent with the provider, before apprentices return to STL to begin in-house training while continuing part-time study.
In summer 2026, STL took on three new toolmaking apprentices, bringing the number it has recruited over the last four years to nine.
Progression within the scheme continues beyond the initial apprenticeship itself, with many former apprentices going on to achieve mechanical engineering HNCs and HNDs.
It is quite common to find three generations of workers on the STL shop floor, including current apprentices and former STL-trained apprentices, collaborating on projects and solving engineering challenges together.
STL Operations Director Tom Roberts explains the thinking behind the scheme:
“Our work is highly skilled and demands extremely tight tolerances. Like many engineering firms, we find it increasingly difficult to recruit people with the skills and experience we need. We manufacture a diverse range of products for multiple sectors, exporting to five continents. Once more, 85% of everything we manufacture is exported globally, this is a real USP of STL that we are really proud of.
“Finding all the specialist skills we require in the marketplace simply isn’t realistic, which is why STL is committed to training people from the bottom up. We believe developing our own talent is the answer, and we see it as our responsibility to invest in the next generation.
“Apprentices at STL can see where their training leads. A significant proportion of our workforce began their careers as apprentices, and many have progressed to further study, with some achieving degrees, all supported by STL. It means our apprentices can see a clear path for their future from day one” adds Roberts.
Reaching the next generation
In recent years, STL has worked with Next Gen Makers to implement best practice across its scheme and build stronger relationships with local schools. That work has paid off, with a 300% increase in applications for STL’s apprenticeship vacancies.
What this means for engineering employers
STL’s experience offers three clear lessons for engineering and manufacturing employers across England:
• Growing your own talent is a strategy. With skilled, time-served engineers in short supply, developing people in-house gives a business control over its own skills pipeline.
• Show apprentices where they are heading. A visible route from apprenticeship through to HNC and HND gives young people reasons to build a career in the business.
• Make the scheme visible. Applying best practice and building relationships with local schools helps a long-established scheme reach a wider pool of applicants.
With a history stretching back to 1899 and an apprenticeship scheme that has run for more than three decades, STL shows what continued investment in apprentices can achieve.
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.