Meet the apprenticeship advocate: Brian May, Berthon

At Berthon, apprentices have been at the heart of the business for over a century and few MDs are as passionate about apprenticeships as Brian May. 

“It’s vitally important to have new talent coming through the ranks. We’ve successfully trained some 65 apprentices over the last 10 years, many of whom are now at the heart of our business helping us to win new contracts and deliver better products”. 

Lymington-based Berthon shipyard undertakes construction and fit-out projects for both the small commercial boat and yachting sectors. And the company’s commitment to using apprentices is clear in the numbers: there’s one apprentice for every four skilled people on the shop floor. 

“It’s nothing to be afraid of,” says May: “We are ensuring the future of our business and providing massive job satisfaction to the trainers as well as those being trained.” 

“We don’t have any production lines here, so we train them to think about and solve problems on the job. We are not teaching apprentices how to assemble an engine; we are teaching apprentices how to disassemble an engine, diagnose the faults, and reassemble it.” 

"By the end, as long as they have been academically educated properly by their colleges, you have home-built, home-made, highly-skilled individuals who know your business and know how to do the jobs you need them to do correctly, the first time ."

This year, Berthon Boat Company will take on another ten apprentices. “We don’t believe we will keep all of them at the end of their four year period,” May happily admits. 

The success of our apprenticeship programme means that they might leave us especially now that kids see an apprenticeship as a career path through to higher education, even university – but the cost of training them will have been more than paid back in years three and four and from the ones we do manage to keep.” 

The apprenticeship programme is just one powerful example of Berthon Boat Company’s commitment to investment and its desire to stay ahead of the game. Brian May also believes its success sends a wider message. 

“For the economy to grow, we need to build up skills. If we don’t develop those skills ourselves, we’ll have to bring them in from elsewhere. That leads to skills inflation, and that is not good for UK plc. We all have to get out there to train and build skills via apprenticeships – there is no other way.” 

Berthon is currently offering apprenticeships in the following: 

• Marine Engineering 
• Marine Electrical 
• Shipwright 
• Painter/Sprayer 
• Rigger