In 2022, Fairline kicked off its brand-new apprenticeship scheme, offering apprenticeships in engineering or carpentry/joinery, in partnership with Tresham College.
As this week is National Apprenticeship Week, we’re catching up with some of our 2022 intake to learn more about their background, their experience so far, and what they hope to achieve in the future.
We’re kicking things off by catching up with Bolu Adamolekun, one of our carpentry apprentices. We sat down with her to see what she’s been up to since starting with us.
1) Can you give us a bit of background about what you were doing before you joined Fairline?
After school I studied my A Levels before heading to Reading University to study Microbiology. I was there for three years, and when I left university in 2021, I went to work in hospital where I had a few different roles. I worked in London as a technical pharmacy assistant which was an office-based role. This was quite admin heavy – I would be filling out invoices and forms and supporting the general operations of the pharmacy. Before this, I had some experience as a paediatric nursing assistant where I was taking blood from children when they had been admitted to hospital, or during routine appointments.
2) What attracted you to pursue an apprenticeship?
Carpentry is always something I’ve enjoyed but I never knew I could build a career from it. When I was young I always thought I’d be a doctor – I think it’s what my parents wanted me to do and it seemed to drive my studying and working within healthcare. The fact the apprenticeship gives me an opportunity to earn and learn at the same time was also appealing.
However I always enjoyed woodwork and design technology in school. I would like building things from scratch. As a woman, it felt quite exciting heading into a male-dominated industry and building up my confidence to develop the way I work with different people, helping me grow as a person as well as professionally.
3) Why did you choose the Fairline apprenticeship?
The fact that working at Fairline was working on boats was really appealing to me. I had a preconception that a carpentry apprenticeship would be restricted to construction and houses; I like that we get to work inside on the boats too! It’s a luxury industry and a really quality product and it’s nice to be a part of that team.
At the assessment days I met some of the people I would be working with and that made me want to pursue it even more; I like the fact that there are a range of ages and backgrounds of people working in the apprenticeship.
4) What has been your favourite part so far?
I really like that we can get involved with using the tools to develop our skills – I feel like I’m making good progress and we are trusted to make decisions and to work safely on our own, and be trusted that we will ask for help when we need it. I really like the job, my days at Tresham College, and the people that I work directly with, so it’s been a win/win situation.
5) Lots of our production team (and our apprentices) are male – how have you found stepping into an industry that is heavily male-oriented and what advice would you give to other thinking about an apprenticeship?
I would say I don’t really see us as ‘men and women’ – I just see us all as people on the same apprenticeship journey! I would highly recommend that if you love the industry don’t even think about the gender split – just go for it!
The men who are also on my apprenticeship are really friendly and we all get along as a group really well – I don’t see myself as being one of only a few girls in a male dominated team. We share plenty of jokes between one another and it’s really helped me develop my confidence. I can truly say my apprenticeship is helping me develop strong life skills as well as my industry specific carpentry skills, so I’m feeling positive for the future.
Thanks to Bolu for taking time to share her experience so far with us. As a company, we are thrilled we can offer these opportunities to people regardless of their background or where they are at in their professional career. We are passionate about building boats that surpass our customers’ expectations when it comes to design, build, and finish. Therefore, the ability to teach and guide our apprentices ensures they can become experts in boat building skills the Fairline way.