Score Group engineer Scottish Apprenticeship Award win

Specialist engineering firm Score Group has been named Large Apprentice Employer of the Year sponsored by Anderson Strathern at the Scottish Apprenticeship Awards.

Score Group management team with some of the company's apprentices at its Peterhead HQ

Score Group beat tough competition from BAE Systems and Morgan Stanley.

The firm’s work to start up maths clubs in schools around its Peterhead HQ to support potential future apprentices was highlighted by the judging panel at the ceremony on Friday, March 8.

The awards celebrate outstanding apprentices, their employers, instructors and mentors from across Scotland.

Score Group Global Apprenticeship Manager, Stevie Wilson said: “Score Group are delighted to win this award, as it’s recognition for all the work of the senior management team through the partners that we work with right through to the shop floor, where there’s people that are nurturing and helping young apprentices gain talent, gain skills and improve behaviours throughout the operation and grow us as a business.

“We’ve got a good partners; we’ve got Robert Gordon University, we’ve got local training providers in Fife and in Peterhead in North East Scotland College.”

Stevie added: “Apprenticeships are essential for our operation. We take young talent in from the local schools, local areas that we operate in throughout Scotland.

"We have lots of people in Score that have come through apprenticeships over the last 35 years that are still operating as managers, senior managers and directors for the company.

"They've got a heart for the apprenticeships and a heart for the people, and it creates that cultural appetite to take young people into the business.”

The company has 130 Modern Apprentices across four sites - 110 working on technical disciplines and 20 in business support roles. There are also 12 Graduate Apprentices.

Together, the apprentices make up almost 15% of the workforce. 

Leighton Willox, Score’s head of training, added: “We identified maths as a barrier for recruiting new talent. People were applying for apprenticeships without the qualifications that our college learning provider partners are looking for.

“Our engineers can go in and explain exactly why you need maths by taking real life examples into the classroom.” 

By doing so, this has helped Score to recruit the large numbers of apprentices they need every year. 

Minister for Energy, Just Transition and Fair Work Gillian Martin, who spoke at the event, said: “Apprenticeships are a vital part of Scotland’s skills system, and key to supporting our young people into rewarding careers, while helping others upskill, reskill and progress in their chosen careers."

Score’s Modern Apprentices spend a year in the classroom before starting on site. Apprentices start in the training workshop, bench fitting, machining, and learning to use hand tools and how to operate in a workshop before they move into a work environment.

This apprenticeship training model has been so successful in Scotland that Score exports it around the world. The company is already using this apprenticeship training model in Trinidad and Australia, with smaller schemes in Canada and Norway.