More recently his son, Joe, has followed in his father’s footsteps to join the Morson Projects office as a Junior Aerospace Design Engineer while completing his degree at the same time.

For National Apprenticeship Week 2023, we caught up with Brian and Joe to discuss the similarities, and the differences, between their apprenticeship journeys.

Watch their interview:

​Joe: I joined Morson Projects straight after completing A-levels in geography, maths, physics, and then I was looking to go to university. I looked at a couple and then an opportunity came up through my dad that I was able to join Morson Projects and do my degree at the same time. I study at Hull College, a local university. I do that once a week and I’m trying to get my degree at the same time as I’m working at Morson Projects

Brian: Well, I started my career back in September 1983. I did an apprenticeship straight from school. I didn’t do A-level. I went straight from school at 16 to be a BAE Systems apprentice. They had two types of apprenticeship. A craft apprenticeship was aimed at creating engineers to work on the shop floor and be the fitters. I did a technical apprenticeship which was basically aimed at getting people into the offices, into the design and into structures and into sort of the technical environment. And so, I did my four-year apprenticeship and in the last year I went into design. And basically, I’ve been in design ever since.

Joe: How was the apprenticeship programme different back in those days?

Brian: I was very privileged at the time because at the time BAE Systems employed over 4,000 people. They had all the different assembly shops. And you went around to see all the different facilities. You saw the machining, you saw the manufacture, you saw the foundry. We even went into the forge. So, they had all the different environments, all the different aspects of making an aircraft. Historically, they managed on site the manufacture of aircraft from drawing it to final flight. Gradually that diminished but I came in at one of the later stages when they were still manufacturing. So, it did make a big difference. to be able to see all the manufacturing and see the way aircraft are put together Having said that, nowadays technology has moved on and you’ve got the ability to use online resources and you’ve got the ability to still get a very good apprenticeship and you still get the same sort of exposure to all that. But in those days, there were no computers. Everything was manual. I started on the drawing board, and we still bizarrely, you know, 40 years later, still actually do some manual drawings.

Joe: Personally, for me getting my degree at the same time, there’s the obvious benefit of less debt, that I’m getting paid while I’m doing my degree and Morson Projects are covering the cost of it. But as well as that, the most important thing about it is the experience, because at most university students, you study for five years, you get the master’s, get the degree, but they have no real practical workplace experience.

Joe has very much been inspired by his father’s job and showed this from an early age.

Brian: When you were young, to be honest, I could see you borrowing my tools and making things in the garage and doing your bike and making a desk. see I could see whether I liked it or not, that’s where you were headed. So it’s, you know, to some extent, you’re not born an engineer, you know, you but you’ve got to have that natural curiosity and natural interest which I’ve obviously passed on. And we have both got that natural curiosity. It’s something that you do inherit. It’s fundamental, you’ve got to enjoy what you’re doing, and you’ve got to have an interest and that creative element as well.

Hannah Lee is an Apprentice Design Engineer at Morson Projects. Despite showing an interest in aerospace engineering from early in life, her journey to an apprenticeship took her into a degree she wasn’t sure she wanted to do. Hear her story here

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