Multidisciplinary engineering firm adi Group’s commitment to diversity, inclusion and the community has seen it win two awards at the 2025 Engineering Matters Awards.
The Birmingham-based business’ innovative pre-apprenticeship programme claimed the Diversity and Inclusion Champion Gold Award and Community Champion Silver Award at the ceremony held at the Postal Museum in London.
adi beat off competition from the likes of Rolls-Royce Novel Nuclear, ABB and Microsoft for the two awards, which recognise organisations and projects that have helped open up the engineering industry to a wider range of employees, and those businesses making a significant contribution to supporting a community.
On hand to receive the trophies was adi Group founder and chairman Alan Lusty, who said: “I’m beyond proud to see our pre-apprenticeship programme recognised with not one, but two awards.
“These awards highlight our ongoing efforts of working towards a more inclusive workforce and supporting the communities we serve. We’ve experienced so many people joining us as a pre-apprentice, completing their training with us and going on to have long, fulfilling careers at adi - and to have more recognition of that is truly fantastic.
“We couldn’t be prouder of the opportunities the programme creates, and it’s brilliant to see it celebrated with these awards.”
The Group’s pre-apprenticeship programme was launched in 2016 and was the UK’s first. It offers year 10 and 11 students the opportunity to develop hands-on engineering skills in purpose-built workshops over a two-year period, and provides a natural path into an apprenticeship.
Every year12 children go through the programme, which takes up around 10% of their GCSE timetable, with a total of 108 pre-apprentices undertaking it since its launch.
Throughout the last decade, adi has seen its staff in earn-and-learn positions exceed 10% of its overall workforce, earning it Platinum Membership with The 5% Club which recognises companies that are making a difference in providing the next generation with work opportunities.
And, with an increasing shortage of engineers in the UK, the impact of adi’s pre-apprenticeship programme can’t be overstated.
Alan said: “In the UK currently, there’s a shortfall of 60,000 engineers per annum. This statistic is getting progressively worse and the current gap totals 360,000. It’s businesses that need to get us out of this deficit and that’s why our work with schools is so important.
“Since we started working with them, we’ve called these children future engineers and they learn the skills across the two-year period to continue with adi or find a space at other companies.
“The programme we’ve built has a framework that can be replicated across industries, too. We’ve devised the model, the qualification and everything you want, so this can be plugged into other businesses who can do the same as us.”
Find out more about adi Group and its commitment to developing new talent at adiltd.co.uk/apprentice-academy
