Navantia UK has welcomed 66 new apprentices to Harland & Wolff Belfast, giving HR and workforce planning teams in defence and heavy manufacturing a structured apprenticeship model spanning technical trades and support functions such as HR, finance and procurement. The intake forms part of a wider £157 million investment programme across Navantia UK's four UK yards, including more than £90 million in Belfast.

Navantia UK operates Harland & Wolff Belfast alongside yards in Appledore, Methil and Arnish, and is delivering the Royal Fleet Auxiliary's new Fleet Solid Support ships programme. The Belfast yard has built around 1,700 ships over its history, including 175 for the Royal Navy.

The strategic logic trains a broad cohort across welding, fabrication, pipe fitting, project planning and technical support, alongside apprenticeship pathways in HR, finance and procurement, building internal capability across both technical and enabling functions rather than relying on external hiring for either.

The structural driver is a long-term pipeline of defence and industrial work tied to a strategically important UK defence programme, requiring sustained investment in skilled labour rather than a short-term recruitment push. Helen McTokell, apprenticeship and training manager at Navantia UK, said apprenticeships are central to the company's plans to build the skilled workforce the business and the wider UK shipbuilding industry will need for the future, adding that the new recruits are joining at an exciting moment as the company invests in the yard and grows its workforce.

The investment includes upgraded fabrication halls, mechanised panel lines, automation and digital technologies under Navantia's Shipyard 5.0 approach, with the fabrication hall extension completed earlier this year and a new panel line operational since July.

For the sector, the case signals that defence and heavy manufacturing employers rebuilding UK shipbuilding capacity are treating apprenticeship intake as central to long-term programme delivery, a model likely to be replicated across Navantia's other UK yards and by comparable defence manufacturers.

Source: Belfast News Letter