Manufacturing Leaders

Lessons From 55 Years In Industry

• Mark Bracknall • Season 12 • Episode 3

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In this inspiring episode, Paul Stockhill, Managing Director of Agemaspark in Doncaster, shares insights from his remarkable 55-year journey in UK manufacturing. A passionate advocate for apprenticeships, Paul believes that developing young talent is the only sustainable answer to the sector’s growing skills crisis — and he’s proved it.

Every member of his senior management team started their career as an apprentice at Agma Spark — including those who joined him in a successful management buyout. From 3D metal printing for space stations and Mars rovers to nurturing the next generation through real-world work placements, Paul’s story is a blueprint for how legacy, innovation, and people development can power a business for decades.

🎙️ In this episode, you'll learn:

  • Why apprenticeships are the backbone of Agemaspark’s success
  • How the AMRC Training Centre's 38-week intensive program sets apprentices up for success
  • The importance of communication skills in modern manufacturing
  • Why Paul believes UTCs (University Technical Colleges) are key to solving the skills gap
  • How Agemaspark’s first female engineering apprentice represents a new era for the business
  • What it means to leave a legacy that’s bigger than one career

With 60,000 engineers projected to leave the industry by 2030, Paul's mission is clear: build businesses that last by investing in people who will carry them forward.

Please subscribe to the channel for more content! Theo James are a Manufacturing & Engineering Recruiter based in the North East, helping Manufacturing and Engineering firms grow across the UK. Please call us on 0191 5111 298

Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome to an episode of the Manufacture Leads podcast with me Bob Racknell, the managing director of Theo James Recruitment. Today we welcome on Paul Stockhill, the managing director and owner of Agma Spark, based in Doncaster, a business he's owned for 22 years, having been in the industry for 55 years, so, fair to say, paul knows a thing or two about manufacturing. Couldn't wait to have Paul on and it was such an honour. He is someone who is passionate about apprenticeships. He's a passionate about young people. He was recommended to me by one of his senior staff members because they are going through management buyouts and every single person on that MBO came through the apprenticeship group. He believes in it. He has lived and breathed that model ever since he started the business and I couldn't wait to talk about that process with him, about the good times, the bad times and why he believes in so much in a situation right now where we have a real skill surge. As he says himself, 60 000 people engineers will leave the sector by 2030 and we need to plug that gap. So it was important, pros, to have pulled on today to re-talk about what companies should be doing and how they should be looking at apprenticeships, how it works closely with the UTC and schools to really make sure that manufacturing the lifeblood of manufacturing is very much the important piece, which is a really important missing piece for a lot of businesses right now. So thank you, paul, for spending your time today to talk through that process. It was a real honor and he's very proud and quite rightly proud of the business that he has produced.

Speaker 1:

So please sit back and enjoy the episode. Please just do me the honor of clicking that like and subscribe. It really helps grow the show. Thank you very much. Hope you enjoy the episode. Excellent. A massive well-welcome to Paul Stockill, the managing director of Aegema Spark, based in Doncaster. How are you doing, paul? All right, I'm good. Thank you, yes, yes, good day. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to going through this and this amazing journey you've had in your tremendous career. So Paul has been managing director since 2022, so owner and director, and his business is all about bringing people from apprenticeships and the youth level to senior management level, and we stand here today. There's a management buyout that will be planned for all people he's brought on for apprenticeships. So there's loads to learn here from companies, but we'll do that.

Speaker 2:

But before we do that, it's the same question I ask everyone that comes on, which is what does it mean to you to be a leader? Uh, I guess over the years um, I've been in this business 55 years to start with. That's the, that's the crux of the whole thing. Um, senior did its worst and it's best. I believe we need to create a legacy for our young people to be able to see that manufacturing is massively important to this country's survival and long-term prosperity. So I find myself in a position that I've been found a way I've been able to fulfill a self-proclaimed prophecy for myself that I I intended to make somewhere along the line, to leave a legacy out of, uh, out of all these years of doing what I've done. So that's where I'm at in the moment. Yes, when?

Speaker 1:

When did that become important to you? Was that a transition, or can you remember a moment?

Speaker 2:

Well, if I, it kind of depends where you start, I suppose. If you go right back to being at school, I was looking to be, I was head boy, I was captain of the football team, basketball team, athletics. All those things were important to me and I found that, you know, you had a kind of influence on other people, which is it was important, it was nice. Um, I started work at 17. Um, I have only ever had one uh interview for a job and that was at 17. So, um, that's the story in itself, I guess. But for me, I I always then when I was working in uh industry, the business I worked in, I've always been part of that, finding the next generation to take over apprenticeships and things that were in apprentices. I finished my time at 22 and 23. I was an apprentice working for me and things like that. So it was always kind of a pressure to see what can be done and who could do to do. And over the years and the different businesses I've been part of, I've always made sure that it was important to fill the void at the bottom, to get to make sure you know the any business is about what you fetch in to try and mature the whole site, give it an equal opportunity to survive in the future. So those are the kind of things, especially now I've come down to where I am now.

Speaker 2:

When I got involved with this business back in well, I was a technical director in a business, a machine tool sales business back in 1998. And in that period I created a subcontract division inside that to work on trying to do two points of sale direct sales and also subcontract sales to businesses. I ran that for three and a half years on my own and then obviously moved back, uh donka, back up into doncaster. I've always lived here but uh and I was traveling to leicester for for many years. But it was important when we set a gym spark up that we would need to put apprentices inside the organization from day one if we could um, and that's been a um difficult to start with those first couple of years and horror stories and all sorts of things. But once I found the model which was kind of close to us, we were able to bring something in that today's um, I believe, is well second to none, if I'm honest. But that's for those people to decide. But it is a business.

Speaker 1:

It's worked tremendously well and I concur, I mean the ironically the conversation. It was a phone call speaking to one of your members of staff one of your members of staff when you see management team and obviously as a owner of recruitment business, the topic quickly for me came on to recruitments and and all the processes and he was very, very quick, very polite, but very quick to stop me to say I just want to explain to you this is how we do things here. We we promote within, we're organic and these are the results that we're now about to go for an, a margin buyer, and I and everyone else around me was apprenticeship and and I was just just stuck with my tracks and and I just applauded that mentality because it's just incredibly rare. You don't see that. So it must have. It must there must be moments. So in that, where you've had to stay, stay very true to yourself and your moral, because that's not always the easiest path to go down.

Speaker 2:

No, no, I mean, if I can go back a little bit in time, which is probably, it sets a little bit of the narrative about where we are today from what came out in the past. So I've always been involved in the higher end of management or organizations for whatever reason, the abilities or whatever. Back at that, when I went for that first job interview, I I was there 10 minutes. I I actually design and build a whole silver coffee pot for my. I think there were gcfc's and all the way cscs.

Speaker 2:

I I can't remember, it's not long ago um, for my metal work where at that time you could go in and burn yourself and cut your fingers and all that. Okay, the health and safety was a long way away from from that kind of stuff. Um, and the guy took the coffee pots away for 45 minutes, left me there waiting, wondering what's going on, came back he put the pot down and said you start on monday and that was it. Honestly, that's the only. It's a. It was a, an amazing kind of experience. I never really thought much about it until later in life. Yeah, that's the only. It was an amazing kind of experience.

Speaker 1:

I never really thought much about it until later in life, yeah, especially getting involved with the education UTC now.

Speaker 2:

But from that point on I was able to get to good levels within the tool room and management and other things like that tool room and management and other things like that. And when, uh, when I got to decide it went well, when my partner and I decided that we would move this subcontract division that was inside the the um machine tool sales company back up into yorkshire because there was a lot of grants with yorkshire forward and other things like that we were able to get help to fetch that business back in as a new, a new business entering the area. So, uh, ideal for me. I now have 20 minutes to drive to home and back to work, so that was good. But at that point um, there's so much problems prior to that where apprenticeships were kind of forgotten and stopped and me trying to find suitable qualified people to come and join into a new business proved extremely difficult um, I ended up relying on putting the word out there that I was back in town and look, and thankfully, um, two or three people that had worked for me over the previous years in in different businesses contacted me and said you know, we're kind of looking for a new start in life and something like that. Graham, who's part of the senior management team, came. I'd known him since school, so I knew his background and his capabilities. Known him since school, so I knew his background and his capabilities. Um, a couple of other guys who I knew, uh, chris, I knew they all worked for me at some point in the previous set, so I ended up with a cool four to start off with, uh which sort of thing. So then, the the important thing is to try and fetch some new blood into the place and, like I said, I had several horror stories of apprenticeships coming into their boat.

Speaker 2:

The reason I see that as a business and how it kind of matured into what it is, it wasn't this kind of, wasn't really planned, it was a kind of. Looking at the scenarios that were presented to you in various, you can't find good kids coming out of school. They can't find the skill level. A lot of industry, a lot of businesses left engineering, as in precision engineering, tool making kind of scenarios, because at that point china was taking everything away from everywhere and the skills weren't there. You find some people that were trying to apply for the job which had been out of the industry 25 years doing something else you know, and then trying to come back into a technology level that was completely alien to them, just couldn't cope with it. So decisions about that were okay.

Speaker 2:

Once I found out where I could get hold of suitable trained people on this Jobs for Life program that the government was running, I was able to start finding a solution.

Speaker 2:

Not that I knew it would go in anywhere, but finding a couple of good lads to start off with um. But as it kind of developed um and you see, the whole thing becomes a uh, can keep, takes an entity of itself to a point and I started to believe that this might work. You know the businesses we were in we were trying to find. We were starting to work with some blue chip companies, rolls-royce and other kind of um, tier one, tier two businesses that, mainly because of the capability of the machinery that we had, uh, it's all kind of at that time it was all brand new as well. So um, uh, the wire erosion, spark erosion, cnt, milling, all those things and are important to produce things. What I didn't want to do was sell widgets. I might have come to regret that in the past a few times, but I kind of wanted to be everything to all men sort of scenario so we could be working in an engine one minute or making a die for ice crispies, you know, it's that kind of broad.

Speaker 1:

Agility piece.

Speaker 2:

Yes, it was a flexibility that I kind of liked and the cut and thrust of doing it without any time and things like that. Make, make, yeah, you get some good rewards out of this. You know, I can sit back now and see that we've made some really good yeah things in our time, you know, and I'm proud of them, you know and there's so much to be proud of.

Speaker 1:

There really is, like you say but I'm sure we'll use that word a lot in this episode was legacy. You know you're leaving legacy and you're leaving a business behind which obviously is fully cabled now because of the people you've put in it and they've been there for so long. Yes, you mentioned the UTC. So I sit on the board of the UTC in New Nagliff, the Northeast. Obviously You'll discuss the one in Doncaster. Not everyone knows even what the UTC does. Why should manufacturing companies be aware of their local?

Speaker 2:

not just the UTC, but something of that ilk which can help. Well, I think again, if I go slightly backwards, to when my now senior team started with me at 16, they don't have a stack of A-levels or anything of that nature. They don't have a stack of A-levels or anything of that nature. The majority of them do in the core assembly. But what I came to find out is that you know, you don't have to be an Einstein to be able to build. Use your hands and your eyes and your capabilities, einstein, to be able to build. Use your hands and your eyes and your capabilities. That, to me, was the core of how we should approach businesses to engage with this kind of, especially now with the apprentices and the skills issues that we have. It's kind of massively important. The UTC came down to my radar. Important. The utc came down to my radar. Um. Actually it's 12 years ago last month that it actually uh got kicked off in doncaster and we're invited to a meeting at the local government building regarding um. Then I had no idea what baker deering Trust was all about and they're the kind of catalyst for the UTC college network. It interested me talking to them about what the model. I didn't kind of understand it for the first couple of meetings. It was a bit about trying to get businesses involved into an education system that for several years, my point of view, was very difficult to get into. We couldn't access that for one reason another, and the indifference was kind of soul-destroying. But what allowed me to see was that, um, it's going back some time, like in my apprenticeship, going back to, like the old technical college. The idea is that they teach them practical skills, give them the academic capabilities and open up the whole thing. So the UTC takes them in at 14 to 18. They can do their A-level sixth form, they go to university, they can do degree apprenticeships, they do just plain apprenticeships. You know all the options about what they could do for their own future. And the UTC for me looked like maybe now I can find the skilled well, not necessarily skill the right mindset of a young person to come out of education who wants and I now see that from 14 through to 18, I can see them all those year groups, see them right through to their 18. What they do now, they get all those year groups, see them right through to their 18. What they do now, they get all those years, industry involvement and businesses and mentoring and everything else. And you find that because of that capability I could see that there was going to be a relatively mature student coming out of there, actually knowing what they want to do General education, I guess, is to give them 30 minutes at some point in a career's lesson, say, right, what are you going to do? University or a job? End of story. There's nothing, there's no flexibility At that time when they're 18. Now they've had four years to to make their mind up and they've seen so much out there.

Speaker 2:

So I got involved. I became part of the um board on the to get the utc into doncaster. Um. We finally got the go ahead from the government some years later. Uh, it got built in the early parts of the pandemic. It opened at the end of the pandemic. It was only half open but within a few months, a couple of months, it was fully operational. They took two cohorts of year nine and ten at that point to start it off. So I currently now I'm on the vice chair of the governors.

Speaker 2:

I get involved in lots of the things that go off at the college. I'm on the board of the business and enterprise there. You know business, to get together, see what they can do and offer help all over. We do exhibitions inside there. My guys occasionally go in there and help them out with. We've been out a couple of times into the engineering shop there and help teach the youngsters how to use a miller or a lathe and things like that.

Speaker 2:

So it helped them along the path, and what I discovered in that time is that the emphasis of the UTC was all I wanted, all I wanted. I had this kind of dream back in 2014 that I was. Maybe this can give me what I'm looking for, which is a steady, continuous source of supply of good quality people. So I did make that decision in 2005. To start from the bottom up, we joined forces with the AMRC Training Centre in Rotherham, an extremely good establishment. We now send all our apprentices to the AMRC. They take them away for 38 weeks and turn them into something useful when they come back out of the other end. And then they do it either if they're doing level three, they are three years, or now with a degree apprenticeships. Unfortunately, they've got to do five years, which is good. It's all about the learning um and and I think the utc now is so embedded within the business and then with the ethos of the business.

Speaker 2:

The guys who started at the beginning also know that this is the way forward. The last four that's come through here got stacks of A levels and distinctions and all sorts of stuff. So you know they were university capable of doing what they wanted, but they chose things some nice stories of how they came to be with me and things like that, which is massively encouraging. And I, for a person who's at the wrong end of it, I wish I were 40 years younger. That was for sure. But the whole thing is kind of it has a it's got some perpetual motion now it's you know it's there for the future. It's not going to change it because we know what we can get and the standard is phenomenal I don't completely agree.

Speaker 1:

A lot of um. Fortunately, now I hear a bit quite and too much that a lot of smes in manufacturing said they can't afford apprenticeships. They just say that and I hear it and it it's um. It's really difficult to hear, but they're saying that because that's that's the way they feel. How do you feel about the industry saying stuff like that, given, obviously, everything you've done?

Speaker 2:

well, I, I can understand. I mean, I do have a soapbox which I stand on and shout about about this a little bit. But anybody with any kind of foresight and sense is the business. The lifeblood of a business is how it can continue and prosper in the future, isn't it? That's the way to look at it. The skills level currently is such a dramatic state. You know we're heading for 2030 where potentially 60,000 engineers are going to disappear or retire, and engineers are going to disappear or retire.

Speaker 2:

I can absolutely understand why businesses find it a little bit of a problem. I was a little bit negative at the very beginning when I decided whether I go with the local Doncaster College. I'd had four of my. Well, all the previous guys who worked with me had gone there because there was no other option. The AMRC wasn't even in play at that point and the results were good. I mean, they worked their way through it. But when I got the model of the AMRC and I can see why people tend to not want it I have to employ that apprentice from day one. So I'm paying them a wage. They take him away for 38 weeks.

Speaker 2:

A lot of businesses are paying somebody for doing. There's no return, yeah, but what you come out at the other end of that 38 weeks is a useful, confident, capable young person. Don't know everything. They wouldn't profess to want to say that, but they can learn and do things far quicker than you. Trying to find time to teach somebody in a five minutes here and five minutes there. It kind of doesn't work. You know all. You've got internal apprenticeship scheme. They're all fine, they all work. None of that is is wrong. I don't disagree with any of that, but I find that you understand that. But the cost is for me is that wages for 38 weeks, basically that I will get all the benefits later on. But as a business it doesn't make a lot of sense sometimes.

Speaker 2:

As I say, I was a little bit against it. I thought, well, go back to what we all used to do, which is a day release for three years and you can cope with that one day of absence and use the other bits. Now, that model be right or wrong with that one day of absence and use the other bits Now that model be right or wrong would work. I think and I was kind of additive. I was definitely against doing it originally, but obviously the pandemic made a lot of changes for a lot of people to take up, weigh the pros and cons of everything and I wouldn't go anywhere else now. I wouldn't do it any other way.

Speaker 2:

But I can see why businesses would say apprenticeships are very difficult and costly. Well, costly they are. I mean you get paid for having them. That's first point. Not a lot, but you get paid. You know there is a some remuneration for taking them on. But, um, if you can get yourself in associations with things like the training center at amrc or even local colleges, colleges, but they fetch that model into there and I can see I was sceptical.

Speaker 2:

I think no, it's all about money. You know you're getting 99 grand a year for each apprentice that you've got. Okay, you're not getting it. The establishments are getting it. They want to bang them in for the first year, get everything done in that one year and the other two years are plus, plus for them, aren't they? But here I mean they get tutors going in. They have to go into the college every now and again to do various things. So you know it's monitored all the way through. But I as a business would suggest if you don't look at apprenticeships, the future is not going to be too bright for you, because if we can't find the skills, we can't make the skills happen.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely.

Speaker 2:

We're going well, we're not going anywhere, are we really? That's the point.

Speaker 1:

I completely agree with that. One question I really want to ask you, because you've been in this industry for such a long time and you've seen so much change and it seems like we're now on the edge of something very, very different and huge changes in manufacturing Skill set-wise. What skills do you think and this is probably a theme you talk with UGC what skills now do you think are the most important skills for young people to be ready for, like you say, post-2030, when we do suddenly need an influx of people?

Speaker 2:

Well, I think and this goes for everything communication is the key. If you can get them to be confident to speak to anybody or any skill or any set of conversations, excuse me, that's one thing. You need to make them open up and be able to engage, and I think, um what I've found now that because one of the biggest things that really kind of changed the theme for me was we we agreed to do um work placements. That was, uh, I've done. I did them for many years prior to to all this um, but the education system was basically um tick box exercise, find somebody who will take a kid for whatever amount of time one week, um job done wasn't about giving me a, a person who wanted to know about engineering. You know, I've had had some students that obviously had no interest at all in engineering or whatever. You know, there's been occasions where I've found them slumped against a wall asleep. So those things are kind of uh, just drove me insane. Uh, and that right now I now we do replacements. We take probably nine or ten every year, year nine, year 12. And because the UTC has been able to open them up and give them the confidence to join in and we as a business. Don't fetch them in and give them a bag of paper to shred or whatever it is that you tend to see that you know the horror stories of youngsters. You know doing menial tasks. That, I think, is all wrong. You, you need to sort it out. If you can find time to let them come in and you know they can shadow each person on the machines doing the same thing, getting them involved with things. We're here now. We give them a task at the beginning, on the Monday, to design a little component that they could take away with them on Friday because of our additive metal, 3d metal printing machine. We can give them the leading edge technology stuff. That makes it kind of extremely interesting to see what can be made. Extremely interesting to see what can be made.

Speaker 2:

But I think if we don't open our eyes to doing something soon, um, we have to do the upskilling absolutely crucial. We need to find skills. We need to upskill what we've got. It's proving difficult because you can't find. We know people are going to disappear in a few years and that knowledge will go with them, um, but it's all, it's absolutely okay. You've got to concentrate on some of that now, because that's the firefighting situation that we're in.

Speaker 2:

But I do believe that we need to consider what, like I'm saying, we need to find that business to education connection and make it a good fit, and then find these persons be it boys or girls or whatever and we need to get them young. The younger the better. You need to teach kids or you need to teach people at some place. People Milk doesn't come from Tesco's, basically, you know. You've got to find out where it all made, where it comes from, what it's all about. Get them at 14 or younger, not going to primary schools. They're amazing, those kids.

Speaker 2:

They really do want to know what's going off and if you can get them into that mindset of seeing that, you know, I want to be a doctor, lawyer, brain surgeon, all them kind of things where they think um games, right, and you know there's other things. We need to make stuff in this country. We need to encourage them. We need to find these people, young people who are probably not massively academic place but they've really got the talent of making things and doing that kind of problem solving. But we really need to look at this in the round. We do not want to forget. What we need to do now is we need to set some foundations, real foundations in getting young people into this kind of mindset of, and we need to make these foundations deep, because if we don't, we're going to be in exactly the same position in 20, 30 years' time, and that's well. I won't be around, but I mean, I think there's probably a you know it's going to be a turmoil.

Speaker 2:

So, I think we do need to find all these solutions that make and I'm not one of the run-of-the-mill businesses. I think we're probably a little bit unique in what we've done but it's not impossible to do, it, doesn't? It takes a bit of time, but it doesn't take a lot of time, especially the tools today I mean my business and the industries we are working inside are leading edge and my investment over the last few years, like I said, 3d metal printing, additive manufacturing um, it's definitely going to change the way we make certain things nowadays. It's already here. We know f1, aerospace, military, medical all those things are being used now in in those kind of areas. Um, my take on that is we are here to use that technology to aid the manufacturer of the things that we all want to have in a much more sustainable and then, um, uh yeah, easier way and and the businesses now, or the industry now, is open up, it's really open. Um, I've just taken my first female apprentice right. Um, I've taken two on this year. Um, I've known them for three years or more. Um, but the whole. You know the last. I've known him for three years or more, but the whole. You know the last four apprentices that came out of the UTC, which is basically when it opened in 2022. So you know we've been active all the way along. Harvey came. He was the very first engineering student to come out of the UTC. He's just finished his apprenticeship time at the AMRC. He's done his three years now. He's now well. He'll be fully qualified in about six weeks time, I think. So that's when he gets his papers. So you know that's a good one, nathan. He's doing a degree apprenticeship. He's just finished his first year at the AMRSV. And then I've just taken.

Speaker 2:

I'd known Sinem way back when she was in year 9, 10. I mentored her. She was destined to leave at 16. She kind of decided to. She liked engineering and everything. So she's taken, she took the baton and she's just come back. A stack of a levels, uh, a's and distinction, um, amazing young lady, um, and well, she told me she's going to come work for me a while ago. So I had no choice but that was it. And charlie, similarly they, but they're all of them. All four of them came and did their work placement with me a year prior to applying for a job, you know. But we also saw them in that time. I said potentially, this is, you know, it's still and that wasn't just me looking at it is everybody around saying, yeah, he's a good, she's a good, you know? So, um, my god, it's worked, I guess.

Speaker 2:

I think, if I'm, if I'm honest and saying that you know, my wish um 2014 is what might be the end result is is here with a plus, plus against it, so it's kind of really making a um a difference. I think it's and and we do need to look at this the government needs to think about. The headlines are all right, you need to deal with them, but you also need to deal with a bit of the small print, don't you? Because if you don't, the headlines are going to come screaming back at you at some point. From that, I feel it's you know that passion of when I started work and doing all those things. It kind of I can sit here with a uh, yeah, I'm quite proud of how it's achieved, where we've got and what we've done.

Speaker 2:

I mean the things we work on it you know there's not many young kids can say they've got parts on mars and it's in the space station and working civil millions with power generations, um, and a lot of other things. It's, you know, automotive extrusion, things that, and we make dice for ice crispies and that's it's. You know, robotics and things like that, so there's a lot for them to do. We don't have a bored workforce, because every day something's different 100%.

Speaker 1:

And you are proud, and you should be proud, Paul, because you know what you've built over a 55-year career is phenomenal and I just want to thank you for this, for coming on today and talking about this because it's important and it's really important because we're on the edge of some real issues with the manufacturing, and people like yourself, unfortunately, are rare. They put right at the forefront are young people and apprenticeships. And it's difficult owning business, running businesses, and costs are at an all time high. They're skyrocketing. So sometimes that takes a back burner in terms of looking at the real long-term view. And you've taken that view and you've got what you deserve out of it with a business you're proud of.

Speaker 1:

And that's for me, that's legacy, and I just want to thank you for your time today 's. For me, that's that's legacy and and I just want to thank you for your time today and for me it's been a real lesson of why the youth are and the the next generation, is so, so important and we can't just look at the new hire and who's going to be there for five years time. We need to look at who's going to be there for 25, 30 years time and become the next generation.

Speaker 2:

um well I think the the introduction of technology today is, well, it's fast. Everything's changing, isn't it? But I guess, if I'm honest with you, right now, technology and what's coming in it's of their time, that that young youth of their time, that young youth, young person, you know, I still have to ask them how to do my IT stuff. I can't remember it anymore. So you know they're useful for that as well. It is a good thing. We need to look at 100%.

Speaker 1:

Well, thank you, paul, I massively appreciate it.

Speaker 2:

No problem. Thank you very much.

Speaker 1:

Thank you so much for listening or watching this episode of the Manufacturing Leaders Podcast. Please just like or subscribe. It really helps grow the show and obviously improve the industry. If you want any more information about Theo James, as I mentioned midway through the episode, please get in touch with me or the team. I would love to talk about how it can help you directly or your business. We are more than just a recruiter and I know people say that, but it's something I'm incredibly passionate about. We are in business for much more than just a bums on seats approach. We want to help people grow, we want to help improve their lives and, ultimately, I want to work with businesses and people who share the same values as we do, and that's something I'm incredibly passionate about. So please, if that is you and you are passionate about that dream role or passionate about your people, please get in touch with me or the team. I would absolutely love to talk a bit more detail. Thank you very much. Speak soon.