Hello everyone. Thank you very much for joining us, for this very special career con edition in November. I am Jenny from hundo, head of people and culture, and I am very happy to welcome from City & Guilds, one of our special guests, Paul Tunnicliffe, who is a technical advisor there. In automotive rail and marine transport.

[00:00:29] Jenny: So welcome Paul. And thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to chat to us.  

[00:00:34] Paul: No problem. No problem at all.  

[00:00:37] Jenny: so I guess we'll dive straight in with the questions. but actually before that, if you could give us just a very brief overview of your role and, and what that role is and what it means.

Yeah.  

[00:00:47] Paul: So I'm Paul Tunnicliffe. I'm the City & Guilds technical advisor for automotive rail and marine. And what that job entails is basically. looking after our colleges and training providers that offer City & Guilds automotive qualifications. So my job is to support those colleges and make, make sure that they are okay.

And they know what they're doing with the qualifications and they know what resources they need and things like that. So it's very much a supportive role, but I also get involved in, making sure if we're designing a new automotive qualification, that it's going in the right direction and I can support that process as well.

[00:01:29] Jenny: Amazing. So obviously you're at City & Guilds now, but can you share with us a little bit about your career journey from way back when, from when you were an apprentice to sort of where you are now and how you got there?  

[00:01:42] Paul: Yeah, of course. So I, I started my career as an apprentice with Toyota. So when I left school, I went for some, some work experience.

And one of the garages that I went for some work experience, they offered me an apprenticeship. And, and I was quite excited about that because I'm very passionate about automotive and I knew that I wanted to be a car mechanic to start my career. And, and I was successful in getting that apprenticeship and they sent me off to college and I went to college one day a week and did my City & Guilds.

I did my, all my levels, levels one, two and three and towards the end of the, of the qualifications. when I knew I was going to be successful. The garage then offered me a full time job role. So, I ended up working for Toyota for 10 years. So it was quite an exciting time of my life.  

[00:02:41] Jenny: Amazing. and then how did you sort of go from there to eventually joining City & Guilds?

[00:02:49] Paul: Well, it was a long process. I mean, I ended up after doing car mechanics for 10 years. I ended up then moving into a teaching career. So I ended up going to. to work in two colleges for over 20 years teaching, students automotive technology and, and that kind of led into this role at City & Guilds because for all those years that I've been teaching, I was always using City & Guilds qualifications.

So I knew the qualifications very well. And then my current role came up and, and I went for it and City & Guilds took me on. And now I go back into college, but this time I'm supporting the tutors in the college. So it's almost like I've gone full circle in a way.  

[00:03:39] Jenny: Yeah, nice. Really nice. and what key advice and tips would you give young people who are interested in joining the automotive industry?

[00:03:47] Paul: It's a fascinating sector to get into, especially if you've got an interest in cars, and that's probably a good You know, you need to think, think to yourself. Do I have a passion? Am I really interested in, in motor cars and vehicles and engines and how everything kind of works? And if you do, if the answer to that is yes, then it might be that the motor trade and working with vehicles could be the career for you because it's such an exciting career.

And my advice would be to. basically get yourself on some work experience. That's always a good start. You can either do that at school or, or shortly after you leave school, try and get some work experience. And then take a look at your local college and see if they are offering City and Guilds qualifications for automotive and go along and there'll be open nights that you can go to and talk to the tutors and see if there's something that you could, could do with the college, because you don't have to start with an apprenticeship.

You might want to start on a full time. qualification, and then something might lead to an apprenticeship later on. But it's about having that passion and having that sort of, that goal in mind that, you know, you have to have that interest. And if you've got that genuine interest, then, you know, it will carry you through in whatever you do in life, I guess.

[00:05:09] Jenny: Yeah, definitely. If you're passionate about something, why not turn that into a career, right? Yeah, definitely.  

[00:05:14] Paul: Yeah.  

[00:05:16] Jenny: so on that then what, what sort of training opportunities do you think students should be aware of, especially if they are looking at apprenticeships in the automotive field and how does City and Guilds in particular help young people develop these sort of future ready skills?

[00:05:29] Paul: So there's lots of qualifications that you can do towards becoming a vehicle technician as well. We tend to refer to, mechanics nowadays. I think the word technician kind of hints that it is a fairly complex role. So that means there's a fair bit of training that you will need to do. But the starting point is to, like I say, is to maybe start at a college or a training provider and find out what's best for you.

It may be that you're more suited to starting a full time course, first of all, so you can learn the basics and you can. learn how to be safe around the vehicles, etc. And then it may be that while you're doing that full time course, that you start to, to maybe do some work in a garage part time, or you might be doing some work experience, and then you might decide, well, actually, I'd like to, to maybe go on to an apprenticeship.

And the two can sometimes come together like that, you know, but then sometimes we, I mean, we have learners that go straight into an apprenticeship from leaving school. And, but you know, there's, there's different avenues and different ways to go around it. But the main thing is you will need to, to study a fair bit because they're so complex in our motor vehicles, cars, trucks, buses, they're, they're very, very complex machines.

They've got a lot of technology. So you never really stop learning and you know, I've been in the motor trade all my life and I still learn something new every week or so, you know, that you never stop learning on cars. So keep that in mind, but it's an exciting journey.  

[00:07:07] Jenny: Yeah. It's just one of those industries that is genuinely constantly evolving.

So I've just got an old banger, but I'm excited when I get a new car so I can see where I'm parking and stuff like that. But. You can imagine like the actual work that goes into learning about those vehicles and how to maintain them and how to fix them is, is. That's right.  

[00:07:27] Paul: So keep in mind, you know, you're probably looking at probably at least three years of, of study to get up to kind of a level three.

And that would be the same if you were doing an apprenticeship as well, to get to where you need to be, you're probably looking at between three to maybe four years of, of study. And then after that, if you start working for a garage or for a dealership, they may send you on further learning and training, depending on the vehicles that you're working on.

There might be more specialist training that you have to do after that. So yeah, you'll never stop learning if you come into the automotive sector.  

[00:08:04] Jenny: Yeah, sounds good. so obviously we've talked a bit about the qualifications, but what other sort of essential people skills or soft skills do you think are really sort of needed and really essential to work in the automotive industry?

[00:08:17] Paul: That's a good question. I mean, like a lot of jobs, you know, you, good time keeping, you know, you've got to have, you know, be able to, to make, good time. Because obviously a lot of the work that isn't you're doing in a carriage is revolving around customers. So customers are bringing vehicles into the garage that might need repairs, or they might need a software update or something like that.

And the customer is desperate to get that car back as fast as they can, because, you know, cars are really important for people and, you know, they, they use them every day. They might use them to go to work or. go to see family or whatever it might be, or just for, for pleasure. But for a lot of people, having the car back on the road as quickly as possible is super, super important.

So if you're going to work in a garage, you need to be really good with your timekeeping. You also need to be prepared to speak to people, deal with people. So you might need to develop skills where you can speak confidently in front of, people. people who are bringing their vehicles into the garage.

But really, apart from that, going back to what I said just a few minutes ago, it's having that passion. If you've got that passion, you know, to sort of get involved and and really get excited about what you're doing at work, then you'll be absolutely fine.  

[00:09:39] Jenny: Yeah, it'll shine through. You'll be confident when you're talking to customers because you actually care about what you're doing and about getting them back on the road.

So yeah. so then in terms of what other roles there are in the motor trade, beyond sort of just working with cars or just working as a vehicle technician, What other roles are there, in terms of automated repairs or damage, et cetera, because a lot of people obviously know about vehicle technician or mechanic, but they're just completely unaware of, you know, other avenues that they could work on.

[00:10:12] Paul: Yeah, absolutely. Right. So people do think, you know, that, if you come into the motor trade, most of the time you'll be, you might be working on what we call a light vehicle. So like a car or a van. But actually that's not true. There's lots. The motor trade is a lot of different types of vehicles. So it could be a heavy vehicle such as a truck or maybe a bus or a coach, or it could be plant machinery, so it could be like a digger or an earth mover or something like that.

It could even be motor sports, so it could be racing cars, formula One and things like that. There's so many different vehicles that you could end up. working on it. And not only that, cars get damaged, they get crashed, they get bumped. So there's specialists that can repaint the car or repair the damage on the bodywork.

You know, all these are different careers that you could end up going down. And even selling cars as well, you know, getting involved in sales and parts as well. There's so many different job roles. So don't just focus on vehicle mechanic, because it might be that you want to do something on a different type of vehicle, or you might, you might want to specialize in something, but there's lots of different job roles in the motor trade.

So it's worth exploring and looking into all these different sectors.  

[00:11:35] Jenny: Yeah. Yeah. Just think outside the box and just discover what's out there and don't, don't limit yourself really in what you're doing. Yeah. So, In what ways would you say new technologies are sort of, like AI, are changing the automotive industry and how do these sort of technologies impact career opportunities?

Does it make more roles, less roles? What do you think?  

[00:11:59] Paul: Yeah, I think there's, as time goes on, we're going to need some really specialized vehicle technicians who not only understand the basics of how a vehicle works, But also how the latest technology works. So not just electric cars. We're talking about, the, the actual electronics that make a car work.

So you may not, you may or you may not be aware that most cars now can pretty much drive themselves. So they're autonomous, you know, they've, they've got functions that can help you to, to stay in the center of the road, for example, or to avoid pedestrians. Thanks. And all these things are artificial intelligence that's already built into the car.

But at some point in the future, some of that technology might go wrong and we'll need super qualified technicians and people who understand that technology to repair them. Generally speaking, the systems are quite reliable, but you've got to remember that cars can get damaged, they can get bumped. And that's when some of these parts need changing or recalibrating.

So yeah, intelligence. is really starting to come through now in automotive design and technology that's fitted to every single car. So that's another exciting avenue, I think, AI, and I think we'll see more and more of that in the future. Who knows, one day we might see cars that basically drive themselves.

[00:13:27] Jenny: Exactly, exactly. So yeah, very interesting. I definitely think in a few years time, we'll be doing another career con and it'll be very much all about how AI and how the technologies has evolved. So, but it's interesting because if you're, if you are interested in AI anyway, and you're interested in cars, it's actually quite a nice crossover whereby perhaps you've not thought about it and it will become very much a in demand.

in demand role. So yeah, very interesting.  

[00:13:53] Paul: That's right. I think the technology eventually will get to a point where I don't know how many years it'll take. There are cars now that can drive themselves, but the problem is they don't fully have the technology to understand every different type of road, or maybe if there's roadworks or different pedestrians, cyclists, things like that.

So it's still really in its early stages, but I don't think it'll be too long before We're at that point, and, That's going to be exciting in the future.  

[00:14:25] Jenny: Yeah, definitely. Well, thank you so much for joining us and telling us a little bit about, the automotive industry for those that are interested and how City & Guilds are obviously helping young people develop their skills.

very much appreciate you joining us and if people want to connect with you they can find you on LinkedIn.  

[00:14:43] Paul: They can do, yes. look me up and  

[00:14:47] Jenny: You're going to be inundated.  

[00:14:50] Paul: Yeah, but honestly, if you're thinking about automotive as a career, it's, it's fascinating and there's always something exciting going on.

Like I say, the technology is amazing and, and I would certainly recommend it. I've, I've enjoyed working in the motor trade and it's taken me to places that I never thought I would get to when I was a young man. So, Go for it.  

[00:15:14] Jenny: Amazing. Thank you so much, Paul. And if anyone wants to find more of our CareerCon monthlies, you can do so on hundo.

xyz. And that's it from us. Thank you.  

[00:15:25] Paul: Thank you.