To get an appreciation of the complexity that goes into building a luxury car brand, one only has to see the sheer size of the plant at Bentley. It’s so vast it has swallowed up what was once a public road, with hangar-sized buildings dedicated to specific roles that seem alien to the world of car manufacture.
“It’s quite unique in the high-end luxury automotive field,” says Paul Fisher. “People don’t expect you to say you work in the woodshop!” It is here that the bespoke wooden veneers are created, shaped and moulded, with customers often coming in not only to choose their preferred material and design but having a hand in the making process, too. As Master Trainer, Paul is ideally placed to walk them through the various stages. In more than 20 years since he joined Bentley, he has trained several generations of skilled craftspeople. “It’s very rewarding. Over the past eight years I’ve had 25 apprenticeships coming through the workshop.”
What’s notable is that, in this traditionally male-dominated industry, there is a dedicated outreach programme to showcase the opportunities that Bentley offers, regardless of gender. “We’re attracting more women into the business,” says Paul. “We’re making it more inclusive, letting people know what’s available, and what careers there are here.”
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“If you’d told me back when I was at school that I’d be working on cars, I’d probably have laughed at you, but here we are!” says April Tasker. Having finished her apprenticeship at the start of 2023, she is now a Paint Technician. Her role involves applying paint and protective materials to the bodywork, using specialised equipment, in a variety of colours and finishes according to customers’ personal tastes and choices.
“I didn’t know anyone here or that Bentley offered apprenticeships,” she says. “I just happened to see an advert and I thought that sounds really interesting. I’d always loved cars, so the passion was already there. There were different options – specialisms in woodshop, mechatronics, manufacturing, electrical and paint. I’d looked at doing fashion at university, but I ended up going down the business and commercial route. So I hadn’t had the chance to develop the creative side that I had at school.”
> See all the pictures from our launch event for the Luxury in the Making report
April is proof of the changing demographic at Bentley and enthuses about the atmosphere she’s found there. “In my interview there was one other girl, so it wasn’t quite so daunting. But once I got through and we had our first apprenticeship day, we were put in quite small groups, so you didn’t feel so intimidated and you had to work as a team, which of course you have to do for the job anyway, everything is very team based. They’re my best friends out there now, we get on so well, it’s one of the positives of the job. It’s like a close-knit family.”
Just as the roles in automotive manufacture include traditional crafts such as woodwork, they also embrace the fast-changing technological world of digital and IT. Cameron Ackroyd joined Bentley in 2019 through its graduate apprenticeship scheme and is now an R&D Workshops Engineer, where he helps to build simulators and early prototypes for new models, taking donor vehicles apart completely and rebuilding them with new features. His role within the technical support team means he has to have an overview of the whole process. “There’s no point in me giving someone information on the electrical build unless I know how to build it myself, so I spent most of the first two years with the electrical technicians,” explains Cameron.
His knowledge has also been bolstered after stepping into the production line to fill gaps during the pandemic, and he’s now keen to be a mentor himself, having led Prince’s Trust workshops, running mock interviews and CV classes and become Chair of Bentley’s early careers committee for outreach work. “There are always opportunities to do more if you want,” he says – and the fact he’s already inspiring the next generation at Bentley is proof of that. And, whether it comes to building cars or training people, he says, “Nothing beats seeing the end product and the impact you’ve had.”
> Photography by Sam Walton
