Amcor

Amcor is a global packaging leader, developing and producing responsible packaging solutions for food, beverage, pharmaceutical, and personal care products.

With innovation and sustainability at the heart of everything they do, Amcor is committed to investing in its workforce and developing talent through apprenticeships. Visit Amcor’s website to learn more.

Like many businesses in the engineering and manufacturing sector, Amcor faced challenges in recruiting skilled engineers:

“We were struggling for skilled engineers, and the local college wasn’t delivering what we needed, it was too generic…there was also a perception issue, engineering was seen as a ‘dirty job’, and students were being pushed down the university route.”

With a shortage of local training options and the increasing need to develop specialist skills in-house, Amcor decided to take apprenticeship training into their own hands:

“Rather than sending our apprentices off to college, we wanted to deliver in-house. That way we could make sure the training was aligned with our needs and our people got the right skills from the start.”

With a shortage of local training options and the increasing need to develop specialist skills in-house, Amcor decided to take apprenticeship training into their own hands:

“Rather than sending our apprentices off to college, we wanted to deliver in-house. That way we could make sure the training was aligned with our needs and our people got the right skills from the start."

After deciding to create their own apprenticeship programme, Amcor soon began to see the success of their decision:

“We started at one site because the need was there, and it just grew. We saw success stories coming out of our apprenticeships, with some winning national awards.” He explained.

“Other sites were facing the same challenges, so we expanded and even set up a second academy.”

Amcor needed qualifications that could fit around its business model.

“We knew what qualifications we needed to deliver, and EAL gave us that flexibility to do that. Their qualifications weren’t overly prescriptive, so we could customise the apprenticeship to suit the business.”

Amcor uses a mix of EAL qualifications as part of its engineering apprenticeship pathway, including:

• Level 2 Certificate in Engineering Operations (Knowledge)
• Level 2 Diploma in Engineering – Operations (Skills)
• Level 3 Diploma in Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering – Mechatronics Maintenance Technician (Development Competence)
• Level 3 Diploma in Advanced Manufacturing Engineering (Development Knowledge)

They also work with EAL to carry out end-point assessments (EPA), making EAL a key partner across the whole apprenticeship journey.

Since working with EAL, Amcor has built a thriving apprenticeship programme that delivers real results:

“We had 25 apprentices go through EPA last year, and 18 came out with distinctions. That’s huge when you consider only about 5-10% nationally achieve that.”

Their apprentices have also earned national recognition including Apprentice of the Year and runner-up at the British Plastics Federation.

“Our QAR (qualification achievement rate) is 73.9%, which we’re really proud of.”