OXFORD firms are stepping up their apprentice recruitment with training provider JTL.

With more than 700 apprentices deployed within companies throughout the South East, JTL has two decades of experience providing the region’s employers with high-quality apprentice electricians and plumbers to small and large businesses.

Long-standing JTL partners in the Oxford area vary from small businesses such as Yarnton-based A1 Contracting to Darke and Taylor Ltd in Kidlington, one of the oldest and largest electrical contractors in the region employing more than 35 apprentice electricians on the JTL Apprenticeship Scheme.

Yarnton-based electrical contractors A1 Contracting is an example of a small company with fewer than 10 people which is determined to provide skills for the next generation by working with JTL taking on average one or two apprentices each year.

A1 Contracting’s director Andrew Innes said: “You have to build up your future labour force to ensure continued long-term trading and planning. I want to give young people the opportunity to receive an apprenticeship as I did and to invest in the kind of training that I received that allowed me to go on to build up a successful business.

“Right through from recruitment to qualification, the JTL Training Officer liaises with me keeping me up to date on the apprentices’ progress both on site and at college.

“From this I can accommodate any requirements to assist the apprentice and ensure JTL fulfil the learners’ journey through to completion.”

Kidlington-based Darke and Taylor Ltd has around 35 apprentices on its books to ensure the company builds up a solid stable workforce attracting high-calibre candidates who rise through the ranks of the company.

Darke and Taylor’s Training Manager James Thompson said: “Apprentices train, qualify and work to our standards, then as qualified staff progress to higher levels within our company – contracts engineers, on-site foremen potentially leading to director positions, ensuring we are able to build a strong company group from within.”

Whether you are a large organisation or a one-man band looking to expand for the first time, a JTL Training Officer will also be there to support apprentices and their employers by giving them guidance and the assistance needed to ensure they meet the standards required to achieve their qualifications.

This enables Darke and Taylor, for instance, to receive excellent information fed back from both site and college via their Training Officer.

“This ensures we as a company employing eight apprentices per year have the knowledge of exactly how each of our apprentices are progressing throughout their respective apprenticeships,” James Thompson added.

Thousands of young people want to join the industry every year and only those who pass JTL’s rigorous assessment process are included on an approved applicants list which is then circulated to employers to choose who is interviewed and recruited.

JTL’s South East Assistant Regional Manager Ian Stoneham said: “By employing JTL apprentices, firms have a qualified team who are fully versed in the way they do business. It will be companies like theses who have people in place who are going to gain in the coming years, which is why apprentices are an investment in future success.”