BAE to recruit a record 2,400 trainees next year

Britain’s largest defence company will take on a record number of apprentices and graduates by next year.
BAE Systems, which builds the nation’s nuclear submarines and fighter jets, plans to recruit more than 2,400 apprentices, undergraduates and graduates.
Some 6,500 trainees will work for the FTSE 100 group, 15 per cent of its UK workforce.
BAE Systems has a skilled workforce of 100,000 people in more than 40 countries.
Next year’s expected £230 million investment in education means that BAE Systems will have spent more than £1 billion on boosting staff skills since 2020.
The company’s investment, which has accelerated every year since the Covid-19 pandemic, is mainly spent on apprentices, graduates and current employees but it also funds education outreach — it has opened its third skills academy in Glasgow.
Charles Woodburn, the chief executive, said BAE Systems, as the largest defence firm in the country, relied “on the skill and ingenuity of those who deliver our programmes, which is why it’s so crucial we continue to invest in our people”.
He said: “With thousands of roles open for application across the length and breadth of the country and our exciting high technology programmes, there has never been a better time to embark on a new career with us.”
John Healey, the defence secretary, said BAE’s early careers schemes “are vital to developing the talent pipeline needed to deliver critical national security capability” as well as help build the next cohort of industrial leaders.
He said: “Defence offers exciting careers and this investment is a vote of confidence in the UK as a leader for cutting-edge employment, creating highly skilled jobs across the UK.”
Francesca Di Mascio, 27, a first-year electrical engineering apprentice at BAE’s naval ships business, said that doing an apprenticeship “is a great opportunity to earn while you learn. This is the first time I’ve really felt valued after joining a business”.
BAE said it was committed to diversity. Of this year’s new apprentices, nearly a third are women and one in three of its graduate starters have an ethnic minority background.