- 275 Engineering, Product Design and Marketing Gradates to join Jaguar Land Rover
- Takes total number of graduates to almost 1,000
- Jaguar Land Rover invests more than £150m to accelerate innovation through academic collaboration
- Reaffirms its commitment to developing the skills of the future
Buckingham Palace, London, England: Jaguar Land Rover today announces that more than 275 graduates are to join the UK's leading premium automotive manufacturer this year. 57 will commence their careers next week whilst the remaining successful applicants will begin in September. The latest tranche of recruits takes the company's current graduate intake up to almost 1,000, reaffirming its commitment to the future of manufacturing in the UK through sustained investment in skills and innovation.
Dr. Ralf Speth, Jaguar Land Rover CEO said: "Jaguar Land Rover's drive towards excellence in research, design and innovation has seen us invest heavily in our business but our future success lies in our ability to deliver even more advanced and sustainable products.
"This can only be achieved through a sustained commitment to the next generation of innovators who will lead the advancement of technologies required to shape the future of our company and the wider automotive industry."
Developing Skills through Academic Collaboration
Jaguar Land Rover recruits graduates from many of the UK's leading universities and amongst the company's key priorities is a desire to accelerate its engineering capability through greater academic collaboration. The company has close links to a number of leading academic institutions and is progressing its Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG) partnership with a £100m investment in an advanced research facility and a £50m investment in a "National Automotive Innovation Campus" (NAIC). This state‑of‑the‑art Technology Innovation and Education centre which opens in 2016, will provide cohesion and cross‑fertilisationof knowledge for Jaguar Land Rover and its key innovation partners to develop cutting edge advances in automotive technology.
Dr Wolfgang Epple, Jaguar Land Rover's Director of Research and Technology, will co‑ordinate the development of this centre at WMG and has announced the funding of NAIC's first academic appointment ‑ a £1.4m project to create a new Advanced Propulsion Systems Chair (Professor). The Chair will lead a world‑class team which will achieve international research leadership in advanced propulsion systems. These systems will be essential to enable the UK automotive industry to embrace and robustly deploy new vehicle technologies and deliver a low carbon future.
Jaguar Land Rover believe that greater collaboration in this way will lead to the development of specialist skills required to support the long term prosperity of the UK automotive sector.
Inspiring Tomorrow's Engineers
Jaguar Land Rover's commitment to developing the next generation of engineers extends beyond its graduate programme. To help counteract the continuing decline in the number of students choosing STEM subjects, Jaguar Land Rover is leading the skills agenda with the development of the 'Inspiring Tomorrow's Engineers' programme. The range of initiatives aim to make young people more aware of the automotive industry and stimulate interest in related technologies.
Key elements of the programme include dedicated education centres in areas close to Jaguar Land Rover facilities, imaginative 'Challenge' projects for groups of school pupils, plus a wide variety of work experience opportunities for young people of different ages.
These initiatives, which will engage with around 200,000 young people this year, are complemented by a range of opportunities for older students, such as apprenticeship programmes, graduate training schemes and partnerships with universities and colleges.
The company's commitment has recently taken another step forward with the announcement of its status as principal sponsor of the WMG Academy for Young Engineers, a new UTC (University Technical College) for students aged 14 to 19, which when open in September 2014 will specialise in technical studies and offers full time courses which combine practical and academic studies with Jaguar Land Rover and other employers shaping the curriculum to truly nurture talent and focus the academic agenda on developing the skills necessary to secure the future of the UK Automotive Industry.
Accelerating Innovation ‑ Jaguar Land Rover Invests in its own future
The fiercely competitive automotive industry today sits alongside other high tech industries such as aerospace ‑ in fact there are more than 100 million lines of electrical code in a luxury car such as the Jaguar XJ versus 6.5 million in a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, a statistic which highlights the technical knowledge and expertise required by Jaguar Land Rover's 7,000 engineers who dedicate themselves to addressing the many challenges facing an industry which is expected to grow by 40% in volume terms over the next seven years.
Jaguar Land Rover, the UK's leading R&D investor within the automotive and manufacturing sectors, is undergoing a dramatic transformation of its engineering capabilities as it develops the next generation of premium vehicles for its discerning customers around the world.
To deliver these new products, along with the advanced technologies which drive them, the company has invested heavily in the product creation process and this fiscal year will spend approaching £2.75bn in this area. Investment has been targeted towards expanding its engineering resources, developing state‑of‑the‑art virtual engineering tools and upgrading its advanced manufacturing centres to enable more than 40 new and updated vehicles to be brought to market over a five year period.
Ends
Notes to editors:
- Jaguar Land Rover is named Responsible Business of the Year by Business in the Community. The award recognises Jaguar Land Rover's investment in UK jobs and facilities, improving the environmental performance of its vehicles and manufacturing operations and increasing skills and education opportunities for young people and existing employees.
- Jaguar Land Rover has ambitious plans for sustainable growth and profitability.
- In 2012, Jaguar Land Rover sold 357,773 vehicles, up 30%.
- Jaguar Land Rover will invest circa £2.75bn in its products and facilities in the financial year to March 2014.
- Jaguar Land Rover is one of the UK's largest exporters by value (£8.2bn in 2011) and generates in the region of 85% of its revenue from exports.
- In the 12 months to 31 March 2013, Jaguar Land Rover generated profit before tax of £1.675bn with revenues of £15.8bn.
For more information, please contact:
Ken McConomy, Head of Corporate Relations
M: +44 7714 725 236 E: kmcconom@jaguarlandrover.com
Nicola Rzeznik, Senior Communications Officer
M: +44 7736 912 266 E: nrzeznik@jaguarlandrover.com
Lisa Palmer, Senior Communications Officer
M: +44 (0) 7555 540611 E: lpalmer1@jaguarlandrover.com