Meet the Team: Matt Bastock

With a background in apprentice recruitment for national training providers, Matt’s experience made him the ideal candidate to join MTC Training, OAS's training provider, in the role of Recruitment Coordinator in 2016 as the organisation entered its second year.

Eight years on, Matt is proud to have played his part in MTC Training’s journey to building a vibrant community of learners, alumni, and industry partners, across three training locations.

What is your role at MTC Training?
I am the Programme Manager for MTC Training, with responsibility across our three training centres in Ansty, at OAS and in Liverpool.

My day-to-day role involves supporting our employer partners and our learners with their apprenticeship progression and journeys. It typically includes coordinating qualification updates, ensuring compliance, meeting employer expectations through our enrichment programme, hosting tours showcasing our fabulous facilities, and supporting learners with their apprenticeship reviews.

It’s an enjoyable, varied role, and I’m proud to play my part in ensuring that at MTC Training we offer a quality customer service to our stakeholders.

What do you enjoy most about working at MTC Training?
An important part of my role, and one that I really enjoy, is the relationship-building aspect, for example, working with colleagues right across MTC Training to deliver our programmes.

Outside the organisation, I develop and maintain relationships with our employer partners. This is crucial to supporting them to address their present and future skills needs, and to continue to deliver and grow our apprenticeship programmes to benefit our learners.

I’m passionate about STEM education, and I enjoy building relationships with schools and colleges and engaging them in our outreach. It’s very rewarding to be involved in these activities which are so important to ensure future learners get to know about the outstanding career opportunities that engineering apprenticeships represent.

Why is the work of MTC Training so important?
MTC Training was established to tackle vital skills gaps in engineering and manufacturing. We are continually striving to help close the skills gap by training, upskilling, and reskilling workforces to create and develop the next generation of advanced engineers.

A decade on, we can proudly say that we have delivered over 1,000 new apprentices into the engineering sector. Not only that, but we have also delivered over 3,000 upskilling courses to support the industry in developing workforces across the country.

How is MTC Training different from other training providers?
As the skills arm of the MTC, we have a very clear mission - to redress the manufacturing skills gaps that the high value manufacturing sector faces, and to develop the skills needed for delivering the technologies of the future. We are advanced engineering training specialists – that’s our focus.

We work with industry-leading partners in advanced manufacturing who are working to solve real world problems, such as at OAS, where we support the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) which is leading on the commercial development of fusion power and related technology.

In your opinion, what are the benefits of choosing an apprenticeship?
An apprenticeship offers an earn as you learn route to a rewarding career as an engineer and, because apprenticeships are designed in partnership with industry, our learners gain the skills that employers need in their businesses.

As well as achieving an industry-recognised qualification, learners also gain hands-on experience working alongside existing experts within a real work environment, which our employers tell us makes apprentices even more valuable. At the MTC, that also means exposure to the latest technologies.

Being fully funded means apprenticeships avoid the issue of student debt whilst training. In addition, many of our apprentices continue working in a full-time role for their employers once they have completed their apprenticeship, giving them a seamless journey into their new careers.

Why should someone choose to study with MTC Training?
Our facilities and equipment have received significant investment which means they genuinely are state-of-the-art. Our learners have access to the latest industry equipment, including robotics, electronics and additional advanced manufacturing technologies, alongside traditional engineering equipment, plus they benefit from passionate trainers with industry experience.

Being the training arm of the MTC gives our apprentices unique advantages, like access to inspiring engineers who are actively working to find solutions to real-world challenges.

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 back in 2016, we had 40 learners training in just one apprenticeship standard (Level 3 Engineering Technician) at our Ansty site.

I’m proud to have played my part in a huge expansion of our provision. Now we train over 250 apprentices a year in multiple apprenticeship standards and levels, and across three locations, having added OAS ( in 2019) and Liverpool (in 2023).

We have grown our employer partnerships significantly. Today, we work with national partners, in addition to local and regional ones. We have also become more agile and able to flex our programmes to meet the specific needs of different types of businesses.

Looking to the future, what are you particularly excited about for MTC Training?
I’m looking forward to continuing to support further growth in our training provision, delivering more apprenticeships and upskilling for employers, and providing more opportunities for learners looking for a career in STEM.

It’s important for us to remain well-informed on government priorities for apprenticeships and I’ll be supporting MTC Training with these developments.

With our future focus, I’m particularly excited to see how our training offer will develop further to meet the challenge of the increasing use of AI and automation in manufacturing.

Our plans also include offering our learners more flexible, smart learning opportunities, introducing hybrid options so learners can learn remotely where possible.