Skills Academy in £300k equipment award

The TTE Technical Training Group -  the UK’s largest employer-led technical training organisation in the oil and gas, engineering, manufacturing, process and chemical sectors - has taken delivery of training equipment worth over £300,000 as a result of the setting up of the National Skills Academy Process Industries.

Set to be installed at TTE’s Wilton International training centre in Middlesbrough, the equipment includes both a reduced-scale steam power plant and a state-of-the-art process control simulator. It also includes a boiler control demonstration unit, a process rota chiller and a data acquisition unit, all of which will all be utilised in the training of both new entrants to the process industry and to up skill the sector’s local workforce.

This equipment is part of the skills academy’s aim to work with the regional development agency, ONE Northeast, to both increase the overall training capacity and capability to re-enforce North East England as an important region for the specialist process industry training in the UK.


Research has revealed that with further investment will be necessary in the sector to train enough technicians and graduates given the demographics of the current workforce and to meet the planned inward investment in the process industry in the North East. In total it is estimated that the industry will need to have recruited and trained some 16,000 additional people by 2015.

Because TTE works closely with employers in the sector, it has been able to define the particular areas in which these skill shortages will most acute. The National Skills Academy Process Industries and cluster organisations such as NEPIC are charged with to ensuring that enough people are attracted to working in the sector equipped with the skills required by the industry.

Phil Blewitt, commercial business director at The TTE Technical Training Group, said: “This investment will really benefit the very practical training we can offer at TTE to train process technicians.  Our training programmes already simulate the practical environment and working procedures that operatives will experience in the workplace.  

“This new kit and equipment will now ensure that the training we offer in these areas will replicate the most up to date technology used on Wilton site.”

Philip Jones CEO of the National Skills Academy Process Industries, said: “By working alongside training providers such as TTE, the skills academy is now addressing the real skills challenges now facing the process sector by ensuring there are enough up-to-date training facilities available to meet the projected needs of the sector.”