Meet the Team: Emma Johnstone

Having joined MTC Training, OAS's training provider, in 2016 as Project Finance Lead, Emma has had an eventful eight years developing her career within the organisation, and supporting its expansion from a single centre, one apprenticeship standard provider, to the multi-centre training provider it is today.

What is your current role at MTC Training?
As Head of Finance and Operations, keeping a close eye on the finances is obviously an essential part of my role. While we are proud to be part of a non-profit research and technology organisation, it’s crucial that we maintain our financial sustainability. This ensures that we can continue to make an impact, as we focus on developing the next generation of engineers and upskilling workforces to help make the UK manufacturing and technology sectors more efficient and deliver competitive advantage for our employer partners.

A typical week includes pulling together the finances that support our budgets. This involves chasing the pipeline information for both MTC Training and MTC Events. I’m the Company Secretary for MTC Training, which means I deal with statutory and governance-related matters.

Contractual management is another important aspect of my job, where I am the key point of contact for our OAS site, as well as dealing with Health and Safety related matters. I’m also a Corporate Social Responsibility champion.

I’m passionate about Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, and ensuring that this is at the heart of everything we do. Over the last three years, I have been overseeing the Access and Awareness Project, a government initiative which OAS is participating in, with support from our employer partner, UKAEA.

I’m proud to support this project which aims to create access pathways to underrepresented communities across Oxfordshire, to enhance diversity and create inclusivity within our engineering apprenticeship programmes.

What do you enjoy most about working at MTC Training?
I can honestly say that no two days are the same, and I really enjoy the variety. I’m fortunate to have lots of opportunities to get involved in new developments and initiatives.

I also work closely with many of our partners - stakeholder management is an aspect of my job that I particularly enjoy.

The nature of my work means I get to work with a wide mix of people across the different teams at MTC, including our talented apprentices, of course. It’s really inspiring to see what they create as part of different projects they’re involved in.

I’ve seen stunning clock and light sabre designs, for example, as well as practical ideas they’ve come up with for themselves to help solve Health & Safety risks. It’s impressive, given how early on they are in their engineering careers!

Why is the work of MTC Training so important and how is MTC Training different from other training providers?
For me, it’s the fact that we are doing something different at MTC Training in terms of engineering training. Being the skills arms of the MTC makes us unique in the sector. Our facilities, the quality, range and amount of equipment we have available to our learners, plus the access to industry and to leading experts - it all adds up to something very special in terms of what we offer.

In your opinion, what are the benefits of choosing an apprenticeship? And why should someone choose to train with MTC Training?
I think the lived work experience is what really sets apprenticeships apart. Apprentices are in the workplace, learning essential, real-world skills. Being in the work environment allows them to develop a broad mindset.

At MTC Training, our learners are not all school leavers. We train apprentices of different ages and who come from different backgrounds which means there is the opportunity to mix with, and learn from colleagues, at different stages of their engineering careers and with different skill sets.

Our apprentices are employed by businesses across a variety of engineering sectors, including advanced technologies. This gives our training a clear focus on future skills, alongside traditional engineering.

MTC Training is celebrating its 10-year anniversary. What would you say are some of the significant developments you’ve seen since you joined the organisation?
When I joined MTC Training in 2016, we had 40 learners training in just one apprenticeship standard (Level 3 Engineering Technician) at our Ansty site.

We now deliver multiple apprenticeship standards and levels across three sites, having added OAS and Liverpool to the locations we provide training from.

I’ve witnessed first-hand the development of OAS from the bid submission stage, through to ground-breaking, as building work got underway, to the opening of the centre in 2019. This was then followed by a subsequent further expansion of OAS, with the delivery of the new extension in 2023. It’s been a privilege to have played my part in helping this come to fruition, and to see the impressive state-of-the-art centre we have today emerge from a building site.

We’ve been visited by some notable engineers and former apprentices along the way. It was very exciting to receive Ross Brawn, Guy Martin and, of course, Tim Peake, at events held at OAS, thanks to our partnership with UKAEA. It’s amazing for our learners to have the opportunity to meet inspirational engineers like these, in person, and to have the chance to ask them about their own career journeys.

Looking to the future, what are you particularly excited about for MTC Training?
I’m excited to see MTC Training achieve even greater impact and become the UK leader in engineering training. By doubling our provision over the next ten years, continuing to grow our reach across the UK and developing a wider portfolio, with more engineering technology embedded in our offering, I believe we can become the training provider of choice for the engineering sector.

On my wish list for the future is having more flexibility with the Levy to deliver more, hopefully being less constrained within current standards and curricula. I would love to see the development of a standard which enables us to use even more of the types of technology we see being exploited in advanced manufacturing.