Engineering company partners with council and universities to boost recruitment

3P Innovation is a dynamic engineering and automation company that designs, manufactures and supports top-quality production equipment and machinery, from laboratory-scale to commercial scale, working with famous brands from around the world.

Their team of 100 has 1,000 years of combined engineering experience. Many of the food, health and personal care products in homes throughout the UK will have seen 3P Innovation involved in their manufacture or product design.

3P Innovation’s success has been widely recognised including with a Queen’s Award for Enterprise in Innovation in 2020 and the Queen’s Award in International Trade a year later, as well as being awarded a Princess Royal Training Award 2021.

The company moved into newly-constructed 30,000 sq ft premises at Tournament Fields Business Park in Warwick last summer. This is a carbon copy of the HQ building next door as part of its plans to expand to more than twice its current size.

3P Innovation was established in 2006 by a group of like-minded engineers with a passion for high-performance machinery and innovation.

In 2020 they transitioned to employee-ownership to secure not only a long-term future for the company but for the benefits it provides for 3P innovation’s employees and customers.

The business has struggled to hire engineers to continue its growth. The Coventry and Warwickshire economy employs over 50,000 in engineering and manufacturing. The skills shortage is, however, being experienced throughout the engineering sector, where there is a high demand for skilled labour. The company is now receiving expert support from Warwickshire County Council’s Warwickshire Skills Hub.

The Skills Hub has referred 3P Innovation’s STEM ambassadors to the University of Warwick and Coventry University, and the Warwickshire Careers Hub is interacting with local schools to ignite the next generation’s passion for engineering and inspire them to work for companies such as 3P Innovation.

Dr Dave Seaward, one of the six founders of 3P Innovation and Projects Director, said: “Our biggest challenge is around recruitment of technical staff. We operate in a niche and highly technical market due to the custom nature of the equipment we design and develop for our customers.

“Truly innovative products don’t have standard machinery to make them, and a truly innovative product isn’t viable unless it can be manufactured at scale. This is where we come in. Our international clients approach 3P to make their product ideas become a reality.

“We met with Warwickshire County Council since they had spotted we are a high-growth business and they asked ‘how could you grow even faster?’ Our biggest constraint on growth is technical talent. Sadly, despite the rewarding roles available many young people simply don’t consider a career in STEM subjects including engineering.

“The problem is finding potential engineers, training them which takes a number of years and then you worry about retention. Part of the rationale behind becoming employee-owned was to aid with recruitment and retention. It always impresses candidates on interview as they become one of the owners when they join us.

“Eighty per cent of our staff are engineers and it is only a certain kind of engineer that can do what we do.

“Staff turnover has always been quite low, however we have noticed that it is increasingly difficult to find and retain staff who grew up in another part of the country.

“We need to find the local talent and as well as receiving help from the Warwickshire Skills Hub at Warwickshire County Council, our STEM Ambassadors are forging links with local schools. We are also developing deeper links with the University of Warwick, Birmingham University and Aston University ensuring that local graduates understand what a cool place 3P is to work.

“We have targeted 20% year-on-year growth with ambitions to double in size to fill our new building. It is however a challenge to train more than about 8% new engineering graduates each year. Growth is inevitably limited if we can’t find enough capable engineers to expand our successful company.”

Cllr Martin Watson, portfolio holder for economy at Warwickshire County Council, added: “Warwickshire and the surrounding region is a global hub for design, engineering and manufacturing, with a rich mix of innovative SMEs and larger well-known blue-chip companies.

“We have excellent vocational training, further and higher education institutions, but as more engineering businesses expand or move to the region, our talent pipeline gets stretched, such is the demand for creative, design and engineering skills.

“To address that, our Skills Hub is working with partners to identify gaps and provide help and support, to make sure industry has the skills supply it needs so it can continue to grow, boost the local economy and provide opportunities for well-paid, rewarding work.”

Steven Convery, Business Skills Support Officer at Warwickshire County Council’s Warwickshire Skills Hub added: “The Warwickshire area is a global hub for design, engineering and manufacturing, with a rich mix of innovative SMEs and larger well-known blue-chip companies.

“We have an excellent vocational training, further and higher education institutions, but such is the demand for creative, design and engineering skills, our Skills Hub is working with partners to identify gaps and provide help and support where we can, to make sure industry has the skills supply it needs now and in the future, and our residents continue to have opportunities for work in well-paid, rewarding work.”