Employers and UTCs

• Address the skills gap – help to build a world-class technical education for UK PLC.
• Consistently recruit the right people – helping students to develop technical skills is the best way to identify talent, and to build lasting relationships
• Reduce the cost of recruitment and time-to-productivity – train and assess students before they join your organisation
• Create a knowledgeable talent pool – help students to make informed choices about careers
• Corporate Social Responsibility – support local students to secure technical career pathways
• Employer brand – provide staff with rewarding CPD by enhancing their confidence and skills in working with young people.
• Employer of choice – in a competitive market, where technical students have a choice of careers options, employers can build awareness, interest, and aspirations of UTC students by adding value to their learning journey.

UTCs offer a variety of engagement opportunities for employers:

• Work placements – these can range from a single one-week placement for an individual student, to placements for teams of students that work on a project for an extended period. Wherever possible, UTCs will seek to find placements for groups of students, to give them the opportunity to function and develop communication skills within a team setting. This also provides the employer with the opportunity to identify potential recruits.
• Challenges – these can be run for a single day, to a whole term. The employer is tasked with writing a brief relevant to the skills and abilities of the student cohort. The employer works with a teacher to define the project scope, before producing a brief that enables the students to work in teams to create a solution to the challenge.
• Curriculum projects – very similar to the challenge concept, the curriculum project is linked to the learning pathway of a class (or classes) of students. Curriculum projects are ideal for those UTCs running BTEC, Cambridge National, or equivalent technical qualifications
• Mentoring – many UTCs provide a structured mentoring programme for students, where employer representatives can support a student’s development in better understanding the working world, and what they need to do to prepare for a career.
• Employability skills – all UTCs run employability skills workshops and programmes. Employers are key in helping students understand how to become ready for work. This can take the form of CV workshops, interview techniques, mock assessments, and team working exercises.