Meet Ricky Sharma, Director at Engineering Real Results

Engineering Real Results is a leading training firm specialising in providing skills and training in trades including plumbing, gas, electrics, welding and renewable industries.

We have access to development sites where they can work on ‘live’ projects to hone their skills and gain NVQ qualifications.
We provide students with opportunities to get real, hands-on experience on building sites, which is vital in ensuring we have skilled people ready to enter the world of work.

The qualifications we offer are endorsed by employers and leading professional institutes for real-world relevance. ERR has centres across the UK including Yorkshire, Southampton, Wolverhampton, Hertfordshire and Essex.
 
 

 

What’s the idea behind the company?

 
Trades such as electricians, plumbers and welders play a key role in our everyday lives and we need to ensure there is a steady supply of skilled workers to keep up with demand.

When you train with us you do so with the confidence that you will leave with the right knowledge, skills and qualifications that employers value and the industry and regulations require.

The innovative training methods we have developed form a key component of our courses.

We’ve combined the power of virtual reality and our strong industry knowledge to create virtual reality environments which allow students to learn the tools of the trade and practice those trade skills within the virtual environment, before embarking on workshop-based training and moving forward to onsite experience.
We’ve made a substantial investment in research and development and the result is we have a number of extremely successful online training and virtual training facilities that stimulate learning, builds users’ confidence and prepares the students for their workshop and onsite training.
 

How has the company evolved over the past few years?

 
The last three years have seen quite a change in our business. We are seeing more people coming through our doors and young people are getting into trades they might have otherwise overlooked.

We are also seeing an appetite from older people who are realising it’s never too late to change careers and are retraining or upskilling.

Brexit has also had a major impact on the trades industries in the UK and undoubtedly has resulted in a greater demand to learn these skills.

We saw a lot of skilled workers leave the UK after Brexit and this did create a skills shortage in the short term.

But the number of students coming through our doors has gone from 2,000 to more than 6,000 in the three years since the UK left the EU on January 31, 2020.
 

What can we expect to see from ERR in the future?

 
Going forward we want to continue to help boost the construction industries with highly skilled trades professionals who can help to plug the skills shortage that currently exists in the UK.

A recent Construction Skills Network (CSN) report said the UK needs to find an extra 225,000 construction workers by 2027.

The construction industry is struggling to recruit the workers to fill this huge demand, and we see this in the news all the time.

Whether it’s waiting lists for engineers to install low-carbon heat pumps or difficulties finding a builder to complete a house renovation, we are constantly seeing how the skills shortage is causing problems in our everyday lives.

ERR is perfectly placed to help fill this gap between the number of skilled workers available and the number of vacancies.