Kent Business is launching its Kick Start Kent campaign to get the county’s young unemployed into work.

We are appealing to companies – small, medium and large – to offer an apprenticeship to someone out of a job.

Having completed his apprenticeship in 2002, Richard Bonell is now engineering manager at the UK’s largest greenhouse complex Thanet Earth.

For Richard Bonell, there is a simple logic behind doing an apprenticeship.

“You are getting paid to learn,” said the engineering manager, who manages seven staff at the fruit-packing facility in Thanet Earth, Birchington.

“You hear of all these people who go to university and can’t get a job. To me, doing an apprenticeship is a no brainer. You don’t earn as much to start with but it’s all relative.

Some people in my job earn £60,000 a year.

“It’s a struggle at first but as long as you know there is a target at the end, you see it is the only way to go as a tradesman. If someone will pay you to go to college then what’s better than that?”

Canterbury-based Richard’s career has had many ups and downs since he began his four-year mechanical and electrical maintenance engineering apprenticeship in 1998.

“The apprenticeship was totally crucial to me getting where I am today. I couldn’t have done it otherwise...” - engineering manager Richard Bonnell

He spent his first 10 months doing practical training at IPS International’s workshops in the Medway City Estate, Strood. After that, tutors regularly came to assess how he was doing while he was at work. He also spent one day a week at MidKent College on day release.

The value of what he was doing was made strikingly clear halfway through his course. His firm had to make him redundant but he was picked up by another company straight away because of the skills he had already gained.

His learning did not end once he completed the course in 2002. His apprenticeship gave him the opportunity to study for a degree in mechanical engineering at the University of Greenwich, spending a day a week on campus over four years. His employer, Marley Plumbing and Drainage, in Lenham, paid for his study.

Shortly after he graduated in 2008, that firm was also forced to make him redundant, which was when Richard moved to Thanet Earth.

He said: “The apprenticeship was totally crucial to me getting where I am today. I couldn’t have done it otherwise.”

Richard wants more people to become apprentices to address the shortage in skilled workers his company faces.

He said: “When I was at school, teachers were advising everyone to go to college. No one suggested apprenticeships but the country can’t survive without traders.

“People say there is not enough work but for the right people, there is. There is definitely a shortage of skilled workers. I have not had any quality people at the last couple of interview sessions I have done.“Now you struggle to find plumbers and electricians. I can’t employ anyone because no one is that good.

Generally it doesn’t matter what trade you go into. There is always work for fully-trained people. You have only got to do four years and you are set up for life.”

For more information to help Kick Start Kent, both potential employers and apprentices just have to email kickstartkent@thekmgroup.co.uk