On November 30 at IChemE’s 2023 Awards dinner at Hilton Birmingham Metropole, adi Group were awarded the Training and Development Global Award 2023.

The IChemE Global Awards are the world’s most prestigious chemical engineering awards, celebrating engineering excellence and covering a broad spectrum of categories that recognise innovation, social responsibility and sustainability efforts, outstanding projects and much more.

Being the IChemE’s Global awards, it was incredibly inspiring to be not just up against, but being placed as the winner against some huge corporate giants, such as bp, Worley Group, Exxon Mobil, Petronas, Rolls Royce, Eli Lilly and Johnson Matthey to name a few.

With a strong entry focusing on our first-class pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship programmes, we amply demonstrated our commitment to upskilling the next generation of engineers to help close the widening STEM skills gap.

The Training and Development Award recognises businesses that excel in the training and development of staff or education of the wider community, addressing skills and knowledge gaps and overall having a positive impact on the industry.

Commenting on this exceptional recognition, adi Group CEO Alan Lusty said: “We are honoured to have been awarded the prestigious IChemE Award, and to be recognised for our efforts towards a cause that is of extreme importance to our business.
“Since the very beginning of adi, we have been working to provide the engineers of tomorrow with viable opportunities to embark on a successful engineering career, and we are incredibly proud of the success of our programmes.”

Youth skills development is therefore an integral part of our Group’s mantra and mission to ‘engineer a better future’, with the business investing significant resources into our training schemes.
After witnessing significant success with our apprentice academy, the Group launched the UK’s first pre-apprenticeship programme. This offers students from years 10 and 11 the opportunity to develop practical engineering skills through workshops taking place over a two-year period.
The students leave with a formal Engineering and Learning (EAL) accredited qualification, as well as in an ideal position to move into any full-time apprenticeship scheme.

James Sopwith, group strategic account director and head of the pre-apprenticeship academy, commented: “We are deeply aware of the staggering national engineering skills gap and the threat it poses. This is why we have worked to link together industry and education through opportunities that differ from more traditional academic routes.
“One of our main objectives is to tackle the skills gap issue, but also to change misconceptions about engineering and support societal challenges on a more local level.”

This is a massive achievement for us and we are so very proud of all the work that every individual involved puts in.