But what about the students? How committed are they to a career in the workshop? After chatting to Khalid Zaman, who is nearing the end of his Level 2 Diploma, we’d say the answer is very. “When you fix something, there’s a joy to it,” he tells us. Khalid is removing the head from a 1.9-litre Volkswagen TDI on a ‘rig’ - a mobile stand that allows the engine to be turned and rotated for easy access. “Modern engines are so well engineered they’re a pleasure to work on, and this is a really good one,” he adds enthusiastically. “It’s an old unit, but there is absolutely no pitting or scoring inside the cylinders.” Khalid speaks like a born mechanic, telling us he spent his childhood taking things apart and putting them back together. While most of the students we speak to have their eyes on apprenticeships, that’s not the case for all of them.
One tells us he’s taking the course to learn skills for his own personal use, while another, Andrew Medhurst, wants to become a mechanic in the Royal Marines. “Most of the skills I learn here will be transferable,” Andrew says. And although the majority of the learners we meet are young lads, there are a couple of female students taking Diplomas, too. Rachel Swain, for example, races go-karts in her spare time, and also works as an apprentice mechanic for a local Classic Sports Car Club (CSCC) racing team, which runs a Lancia Delta Integrale and a Holden V8. She tells us she has a lot of the knowledge already, but will get the qualifications to prove that at college. “I can apply the things I learn in the garage to the track workshop, and use the skills I learn in the garage to help me in the classroom,” Rachel explains. We also speak to Kayleigh Sinsbury, who wanted to be a mechanic from a young age.
“Everyone told me no garage would want to take on a female mechanic,” she says. That all changed when Kayleigh had a conversation with a local garage boss. “He said it didn’t matter whether I was male or female, he would hire me if my skills were good enough.” Kayleigh tells us college has been empowering. For the industry to survive and thrive in the long run, it has to attract talent like Kayleigh. As such, Buckinghamshire College Group has recently also opened up a new facility at its Wycombe Campus that offers additional courses for budding technicians. The hope is that with more courses and locations, more young people consider a career in the automotive industry. Stuart Carter, a course workshop technician, tells us the safety of his students is always paramount. “The most dangerous thing in the workshop environment is crushing,” he says. “If someone gets stuck under a car, they’re probably not going to make it.
