About

Renishaw is a global company with core skills in measurement, motion control, healthcare, spectroscopy and manufacturing.

Renishaw believe engineering is vital to everybody’s everyday lives, and Renishaw’s Education outreach team provide these clear and positive messages into schools and colleges in Gloucestershire, Bristol and South Wales, and to universities throughout the country.

Renishaw offer an education outreach programme, promoting STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) careers. Their proactive education outreach programme is designed to excite, to interest and engage students in a range of engineering activities. Renishaw’s aim is to provide real insight into the vibrant world of engineering, and careers based on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) subjects.

Working in engineering

The engineering community make a huge positive contribution to society in England, and all around the world.  The industry is always rapidly evolving, just consider for a moment these mind-blowing facts:

  • Almost a third of the UK’s GDP is generated by engineering – that’s more than £450 billion
  • UK engineering and manufacturing businesses account for a quarter of the nation’s total turnover – that’s more than £1 trillion
  • More than 5.5 million are employed in engineering in the UK – that’s nearly a fifth of the total working population
  • To meet demand for engineers in the UK, the number of engineering apprenticeships and graduates needs to double – more than a million new engineers are needed.

Working in engineering means making a real difference in the world, helping to make lives better, easier, healthier, safer. Without engineering there would be no internet, smart phones or computers; no power, clean water or medicine; no cars, planes, bikes or trains.

As the biggest private sector employer in Gloucestershire Renishaw wants to inspire local people of all ages to realise the tremendous importance of engineering and the many rewards a career in engineering provides.

Working with schools

The great engineers of tomorrow are students in schools today.  With the help of primary and secondary school teachers and parents in Gloucestershire, South Gloucestershire, Bristol and South Wales, Renishaw want to find them.

Renishaw’s Education Outreach programme offers local schools a range of activities designed to inspire young students to engage in engineering and consider it as a future career option. The activities are completely free and aimed at Year 5 – 13.  The goal is to bring real-world context and added value to schools’ science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) curricula.

The biggest private sector employer in Gloucestershire, Renishaw has more than 100 STEM ambassadors trained to deliver a host of free education outreach activities for schools.  These include:

  • Interactive, hands-on engineering workshops
  • Work experience weeks
  • Tours of Renishaw’s engineering facilities
  • Support for school STEM days
  • Presentations on engineering topics at schools
  • Support for careers events

New 3D printer loan scheme for South Wales schools

Renishaw Education Outreach is offering the opportunity for schools across South Wales to loan a 3D printer for free, for up to three months, to use in their classrooms. The scheme is open to all primary schools and secondary schools across South Wales that want to explore the exciting area of 3D printing and include it in daily lessons.

Renishaw support the schools by providing an Ultimaker 2+ 3D printer, staff training on the machine, an introduction to TinkerCAD (3D design software) and filament in order to complete classroom based projects and allow students to 3D print!

Facilities for schools

Designed to engage students in engineering

The Renishaw Innovation Centre (RIC) at Wotton-under-Edge was opened by HRH The Princess Royal in 2015. The Centre is home to the research and development activity and provides demonstration, conference and training facilities. For school students in Gloucestershire and Bristol, it’s an ideal place to experience real life engineering.

Classrooms

With dedicated meeting rooms at the RIC, there is always space to accommodate school class visits. Renishaw can generally accommodate around 20 – 30 students at a time and offers a range of stimulating engineering workshop activities designed to develop students’ skills and knowledge of STEM subjects. Students are supervised by the fully qualified, DBS certified education outreach ambassadors.

Workshops

Renishaw offer free hands-on workshops that can be specifically tailored to meet individual school curriculum needs.

For students at schools throughout Gloucestershire, South Gloucestershire and Bristol, Renishaw’s education outreach workshops provide an exciting hands-on experience of real-world engineering.  For teachers, they offer an ideal opportunity to pro-actively engage classes in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) subjects.

Held at the state-of-the-art Innovation Centre near Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire, Renishaw’s workshops are completely free to schools and can even be tailored to meet the needs of individual school curricula.

With strong core curriculum links, the workshops offer a range of different engineering oriented activities including:

  • Technology teardown

Students will take apart a range of modern electronic devices, including cameras, phones, laptops and hard-drives.  With the support of Renishaw engineers, students discover what’s really inside them and how they work.

  • Design and build

Students will be provided with all the materials, tools and guidance to experience a hands-on engineering related activity.

Working with universities

As an innovator and global leader in engineering, Renishaw is committed to supporting university engineering students before, during and after their academic studies.

Many of Renishaw’s graduate in-takes forge long and very successful careers in engineering. The kind of senior positions previous graduates and apprentices have taken up within the company include R&D Manager, New Product Integration Manager and Operations Manager, etc.

Renishaw works with universities through a number of initiatives:

• Graduate scheme
• Industrial placements
• Summer placements
• University visits

Renishaw are committed to supporting engineering graduates with the best possible career training and development programme, and have successfully been ranked in the top 3 best UK companies for engineering and manufacturing graduates by Job Crowd.

Work experience weeks

For students in years 10 to 13 at schools throughout Gloucestershire, South Gloucestershire, Bristol and South Wales, Renishaw’s work experience weeks provide the ideal opportunity to discover what it’s really like to work as an engineer at one of the world’s foremost engineering companies.

The work experience weeks take place during July at Renishaw’s headquarters, New Mills near Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire and Renishaw’s Miskin manufacturing plant near Cardiff; they are open to applications from all students who have an interest in engineering and can show they enjoy maths, science, design & technology, computer science and art.

Successful student applicants will work as a team to research and develop a new product, with each being given a specific role in the following areas of engineering:

  • Design
  • Production
  • Manufacturing
  • Purchasing
  • Project Management
  • Marketing.