T Level Students Bring Value to Labs
After hosting seven T Level students at The Sainsbury Laboratory, we enter our third year of industry placements with even greater confidence in their value for sustaining technical skills in research institutes.
We were delighted to help the Royal Society of Chemistry endorse T Level placements by contributing a case study to the new digital resource Securing technical talent for your business.
Industry Placements Needed
T Levels are technical qualifications designed in collaboration with employers to address the challenges of recruiting skilled and dedicated technical staff. A core element of T Levels is the industry placement; however, demand for these placements currently exceeds supply, as many employers remain unaware of T Levels.
In an announcement on the Royal Society of Chemistry's website, Vocational Skills Programme Manager, Katie Dryden-Holt said:
"Course providers have told us of their struggles in terms of securing placements for students and we must address that if we are to open up as many educational pathways as possible to the future workforce and give them the training they need."
The new resource for employers includes:
- Case studies from science employers who already offer placements
- Advice on how placements would work for businesses and the level of resources required
- Science-specific examples of what learners can do - and have done - on placements
- Answers to frequently asked questions and information addressing potential areas of concern.
T Levels at TSL
Our Laboratory Manager, Simon Foster, and HR Manager, Kim Wood, started worked closely with City College Norwich in 2022 to host students for the 315 hours of industry placement required as part of their T Level in Laboratory Science course.
TSL Laboratory Technician, Francis Aclan, was one of the first students we hosted. Both Simon and Francis were interviewed as a case study for the report to help guide prospective employers in their decisions to host T Level students.
“It's remarkably difficult to recruit technicians when we have vacancies…" Simon shared in the report.
"We saw it as a way of getting people through at an early age to get them into the technical stream and help them build up the skills that they need."
Our vision for the program was soon realised when we successfully recruited one of our first T Level students, Francis, as a full-time Lab Technician.
"We knew that Francis had finished his course. He was looking for a position. We were able to reach out to him immediately - ordinarily it could have easily taken us 3-4 months.” Simon explained.
“I'm hopeful that the T level can be a qualification that people are really proud of.” says Nick Talbot, Executive Director of The Sainsbury Laboratory
A Career Pathway for Technicians
The Technician Commitment was drafted in response to a growing concern that valuable technical skills were being lost as support staff retired. Due to the lack of formal technical qualifications in the UK, it was becoming clear that technical expertise needed more visibility, recognition and career development through professional registration and clear, documented career pathways.
This sustainability of technical skills is one of the key areas The Sainsbury Laboratory committed to improve on when we signed the Technician Commitment in 2017 and we believe T Level training in Laboratory Sciences forms a crucial part of that action.
“Until now there wasn't really a direct route for technicians to learn how to be technicians and to pick up those skills from school and through into university." says Simon.
Some T Level students can even find this early exposure to a research environment inspires them to pursue an academic qualification which they hadn't considered before. We recently celebrated the success of our previous student, Oliver, achieving a Merit in their T Level course and enrolling at the University of East Anglia to pursue microbiology.
