Skip to content
Middlesbrough College logo

Middlesbrough College Group: the skills engine for the Tees Valley

14 Aug 2023
TTE Student

WHEN choosing a property, it’s supposed to be all about location, location, location.

But when it comes to establishing, maintaining and growing a business, it’s very much a case of skills, skills, skills.

That’s just one of the reasons why the Tees Valley is proving to be so attractive for the ambitious businesses that aim to set the pace for the years to come.

Because not only do we have a great history and established infrastructure in sectors such as chemical and process, clean energy, digital, low carbon and hydrogen, engineering and advanced manufacturing, but we have the skills to match – and we’re exceptionally good at passing those skills on and developing new ones.

One of the keys to that success is Middlesbrough College Group.

Through the main College, our apprenticeship and training arm Northern Skills, and internationally renowned technical training specialist TTE, we’re working with some of the most ambitious businesses to invest in the region, including British Steel, Correll Group, ICL Group, Mitsubishi Chemical and Sembcorp Energy.

Many of the fantastic tutors and trainers in Middlesbrough College Group are themselves former industry personnel who have ‘been there, done that’ and are now passing on their knowledge, expertise and experience.

This means that not only are Middlesbrough College Group students exceptionally well prepared when it comes to their knowledge levels, they’re also ready for the real world of work from day one, prepared to pitch in and play their part.

We work hand in glove with employers to ensure that the training we provide is not just up to date, but is also tailored to the tasks in hand.

We keep up to speed with all the latest developments across a swathe of industry sectors and our programmes have flexibility built in so that employers know they won’t get left behind in the drive to upskill workforces.

As an organisation, we are never content to rest on our laurels and are always looking for ways in which we can improve our offering even further.

This can be seen in the substantial investment which we are making in our brand new TTE training centre, the latest building to be taking shape on our campus at Middlehaven.

The new £12m facility, which is due to open in September 2024, will train over 300 full-time students, 300 apprentices and 500 adults each year, alongside a thriving international cohort of students.

The state-of-the-art centre is being built by Morgan Sindall Construction and will provide over 3,000 sq m of space over two storeys.

Its facilities will include:

  • 7 Large multifunction/multidiscipline workshops to provide for Instrumentation, Electrical & Electronic Engineering, Mechanical, Hydraulics, Pneumatics, Process Engineering and Net Zero Low Carbon Technology Workspaces
  • 7 breakout classrooms and study spaces
  • Large Conference Room and staff workspaces
  • Student social and welfare areas

Courses which will be hosted at the new centre will include a range of programmes for school leavers, adults, employers and international students.

Subject specialisms at the site will include Mechanical Engineering, Electrical, Instrumentation, Process, Wind Turbine, and Laboratory courses.

The centre will help TTE continue to provide high quality TTE apprenticeship programmes to a wide range of employers across the North East.

Short courses it will host will include Electrical Safety, Hydraulic Systems, Virtual Process Control Room Operations, Safety Passport, Leadership and Management and many more.

Alongside our current portfolio of courses, the centre will give us the opportunity to deliver new areas of training currently not offered in High Voltage Power Systems, HV Cable Installation, Inspection and Repair, Fibre Optic Installation & Testing and Offshore and Onshore Wind Energy Systems training.

Middlesbrough College Group Chief Executive and Principal, Zoe Lewis, said: “Once complete, the new TTE training centre will complement the already extensive STEM offer at our campus in Middlehaven and cement the college as one of the UK’s largest Engineering training providers in the country with state of the art, ‘real scale’ industrial equipment and industrial specialist staff, which will support the region’s existing and emerging businesses.

“We’re particularly pleased that the new site will also allow us to expand into new sectors such as clean, green and renewable energy, retrofit, zero carbon and offshore high voltage, securing technical skills that are in demand and valued by local employers and giving young people greater access to the careers which will shape all our futures.”

The new training centre forms just one part of an extensive multi-million-pound investment programme which we’ve put in place at Middlesbrough College to help create and nurture the skills which will take the region and its businesses even further forward.

In 2022, we opened our new state-of-the-art Digital Centre to go alongside our new Construction Centre and extension to our industry-leading STEM Centre.

These recent investments have attracted the attention the likes of Professor Brian Cox CBE and Microsoft techspert Dave Coplin.

Mr Coplin said the Digital Centre would be “transformative for the region” while Prof Cox lauded the programme as helping to put the region at the “forefront of the new industrial revolution”.

With all this in place, it’s little wonder that we’re the Tees Valley delivery partner in the North East Institute of Technology (IoT), making us one of only a handful of such institutes in the country bringing together further education providers, universities and employers.

However, what matters most is our ability to work with businesses and employers to understand exactly what they need and how Middlesbrough College Group can help.We’d love to hear from you. For an informal chat, contact our Group Director of Business Engagement and Partnerships, Matt Telling, on 01642 333902 or at MJ.Telling@mbro.ac.uk

Related News

View all news