YOUR JOURNEY INTO MANUFACTURING
Your journey into manufacturing starts here
Starting an engineering apprenticeship can be exciting, confusing, challenging and rewarding, sometimes all in the same week.
You are entering an industry where people can spend decades developing their skills. The machinist who seems to know exactly which tool to use, how to set up a component or why a machine is making a particular noise didn't learn all of that overnight.
They started somewhere too.
They had a first day.
They had their first machine.
They had their first measuring tool.
They made mistakes.
They asked questions.
They watched experienced people.
And slowly, they became skilled.
This guide is designed to give you an idea of what that journey can look like and help you understand some of the things that will matter most as you begin your career.
Before you can become a skilled machinist, you first have to discover manufacturing.
For some people, that happens at school or college. For others, it might be through an apprenticeship, a family member, a careers event, a visit to a factory or simply seeing a CNC machine and becoming curious about how it works.
There is no wrong way to discover engineering.
The important thing is to explore it.
Manufacturing is much bigger than simply standing at a machine.
You can find careers in:
CNC milling
CNC turning
Manual machining
Toolmaking
CAD design
CNC programming
Metrology
Manufacturing engineering
Applications engineeringRobotics and automation
Aerospace
Motorsport
Defence
Energy
Medical manufacturing
You don't need to know which one you want to do immediately.
Your first job is to learn what is out there.
Learning the fundamentals
Once you enter an apprenticeship, you'll start building your foundations.
You'll learn about workshop safety, engineering drawings, materials, measurement, hand tools and manufacturing processes.
You may spend time learning manually before moving onto CNC machines, or you might be introduced to CNC quite early depending on your training and workplace.
Don't worry if everything seems complicated.
At the beginning, your job is to learn, not to be an expert.
Watch how experienced people work.
Understand why things are done in a particular order.
Learn how to read a drawing.
Learn how to measure accurately.
Learn what different tools do.
Then start putting those skills together.
Learning machines
As you progress, you'll begin working with different types of machinery.
You may encounter milling machines, lathes, grinders, saws, drills and specialist equipment.
Each machine teaches you something different.
Milling introduces you to things such as workholding, cutters, coordinates and material removal.
Turning teaches you about diameters, tooling, feeds, speeds and different operations.
CNC introduces programming, offsets, tool management and repeatable production.
Eventually, you start seeing how everything connects.
The drawing tells you what needs to be produced.
The material tells you what you're working with.
The machine determines how you can manufacture it.
The tooling allows you to remove the material.
The measuring equipment tells you whether you've made it correctly.
That understanding is what gradually turns someone from an operator into a machinist.
Becoming skilled
As your experience grows, you should start needing less instruction.
You'll recognise tools.
You'll understand drawings more quickly.
You'll become more confident setting up work.
You'll start spotting potential problems before they happen.
Eventually, you can look at a component and begin planning how you would manufacture it.
That's when your engineering judgement starts developing.
From there, your career can go in many directions.
You could become a highly skilled machinist, CNC programmer, manufacturing engineer, applications engineer, inspection specialist, engineering manager or even start your own manufacturing business.
Your apprenticeship is not the end goal.
It is the foundation you build the rest of your career on.