Skilled and Growing Workforce

The craftsmanship of Staffordshire workers is legendary. From the skilful hands that paint world-famous pottery, to the precision engineers making JCB diggers and Jaguar Land Rover engines.

But it’s the sheer scale of our workforce that is really impressive. With a large local workforce and the ability to attract workers from a wider area gives you the comfort of knowing that your business can scale up and grow here.

The statistics are compelling:

• One of the UK’s largest labour pools
• Workforce within a 45 minute drivetime is equivalent to those of Manchester and Birmingham
• 1 million people living here and 3 million within an hour’s drive
• Strong manufacturing workforce with a very high concentration of engineering skills
• Potential salary savings of 18.5% against the national average
• Population growth significantly higher than regional and national averages
• Within 1 hour’s drivetime of 32 Universities
  Source: East West Locations

Skills development is a priority for us and we work closely with local businesses on apprenticeships and work-place training. For graduate recruitment, Keele University (http://www.keele.ac.uk/) and Staffordshire University (http://www.staffs.ac.uk/)  have more than 25,000 students in key subjects like engineering, IT, science, technology and medicine. Our colleges have seen huge investment and play a major role in providing local companies with the right skills. Another 30 universities are within an hour’s drive including world-class institutions in Manchester, Birmingham, Warwick, Nottingham, Liverpool, Sheffield and Leicester.

We provide a free support service to advise you on recruitment, skills and training issues; and can help you to benchmark salary levels in your particular industry.