Trentbarton has taken on its first female apprentice technician, making the announcement to mark International Women’s Day on 8 March.
Lucy Coope has joined the East Midlands operator at its Derby depot for a four-year apprenticeship, during which she will be paid to train in all aspects of coach and bus repair.
The 18-year-old is bucking the trend to pursue a career in a male-dominated area of the industry and is thus fulfilling a long-held ambition. She says: “I used to work on cars with my dad when I was younger and always wanted to get my hands on bigger vehicles. So I applied for the trentbarton apprenticeship and was really pleased to get in.”
Lucy, who previously worked at McDonald’s, is not the only woman on trenbarton’s engineering teams and she will join females in the parts stores.
She adds: “The team at Derby is really good and there is lots of support. It’s a demanding job, both physically and mentally – if you take a part off a bus to repair it, you have to remember how to replace it. I love how every morning you don’t know what tasks will face you. And at the end of the day you feel you have achieved.
“As a woman I’m treated equally at the depot. It feels normal to me as I grew up around boys. I would encourage other women to consider such a role. It would be great to get more women as technicians into the bus industry.
“And it’s good to see women in senior roles at trentbarton too. It shows that if we keep working hard, we can get on in our careers.”
The company says it will recruit more apprentice technicians this spring and in 2023, for the first time, the intake will not be capped.
Group Engineering Director John Bickerton says: “I’m really pleased that we welcomed Lucy and it’s really important to me that she feels equal – we have room for everybody in our operations, workshops and on the road.
“Lucy is making an impression on the team just as much as she’s learning through her apprenticeship. I’m sure she has a bright future and a long career ahead with us.”
Women make up a small percentage of the labour force in many areas of the coach and bus industry, with the Office for National Statistics in 2021 revealing only 11.1% of drivers in the UK were female. More generally, it is reported that women account for only 16.5% of the workforce in engineering – a statistic likely to be reflected in coach and bus.
