UKFT’s Young Textile Technician Fund is a scheme designed to allow businesses across the UK to train their young textile technicians. The fund covers 50% of the costs of in-depth training for young textile technicians, thanks to the generous support of The Worshipful Company of Weavers and CapitB.

Training is typically carried out by machinery builders, often at overseas training schools, and is extremely specialised. As companies invest in new textile technology, the requirement for highly-skilled textile technicians has never been more important but this type of in-depth training can be prohibitively expensive. UKFT’s fund allowed businesses to extend their capabilities, increase flexibility and develop new skills at textile companies within the UK.

The fund is applicable to businesses applying to train textile technicians under the age of 35.

“Training young people is essential to ensure the future of our industry and access to this type of training is a critical way of ensuring that the UK textile sector remains competitive against global competition. It is great news that employers across the UK can now access funding to train textile technicians to allow the industry to capitalise on all the opportunities that exist for further growth.

“UKFT is deeply grateful to Weavers’, Clothworkers and Drapers’ Companies for their support in up-skilling the textile technicians of the future.”

Colin Spencer Halsey, executive director of The Natural Fibre Company – a recipient of the fund, said:

“Just to let you know we have received the grant for the UKFT Young Textile Technician Fund towards our technical dye training. Firstly, thank you for your excellent support during this process. Secondly, my compliments to UKFT for delivering such a valuable grant for textile businesses, particularly small enterprises. The whole process was easy to navigate and the terms of reference enabled us to achieve a step change in our business.”

Contact Katie.robinson@ukft.org to start your application.