David Poole, FBHI, an independent clock maker and Past Master of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers, is trying to revive interest and funding for a watchmaking apprenticeship programme he developed with Matt Bowling, when he was chief operating officer for Watchfinder.
There has been under-investment in training watchmakers in the the UK for a number of years, and the shortage of skilled technicians has now reached crisis point as demand has soared for vintage watches at a time of rising recruitment from major brands and their retailers for experts who can service their timepieces.
The rollout of Rolex’s Certified Pre-Owned programme will add even more strain as the brand’s own service centre and accredited workshops at authorised dealers hire as many trained professionals as they can.
Mr Poole and Mr Bowling developed a two-year government funded Watchmaker Trailblazer Apprenticeship, which allocated £27,000 per for training each watchmaker.
Training could be delivered in one of two ways.
The apprenticeship could be delivered in house by large individual companies who could claim the apprentice levy for the training of their own apprentices.
Or, apprentices could be trained by a third party operator on day release to a specialist like Swiss Time Services, a business that was originally lined up to run courses, but could not keep the initiative going through the pandemic.
The Trailblazer Apprenticeship was designed by watchmakers for watchmakers to teach the skills to enable the apprentice to competently service automatic watches.
A training workshop was established; two cohorts of students made a start but apprentice watchmaker training ceased due to the pandemic.
The complexity of bringing together government funding, developing the coursework and finding a training provider with the expertise and equipment to deliver it has stalled the Trailblazer Apprenticeship for the past three years.
But Mr Poole is prepared to put his time and energy back into reviving it if there are enough companies interested in quality apprentice training to make it viable.
He is urging watch brands and potential watchmaking training centres to contact him to see if there is a route forward that would begin to tackle the current skills shortage.
To express an interest, contact education@clockmakers.org (The Worshipful Company of Clockmakers).
