Award winning success for 18-year-old apprentice Bradley Kirkby

Message from Humberside Police:-

Working for Humberside Police is not all about the front-line officers you see in uniform each day.  Behind those officers are over 1000 dedicated people working to support their front-line colleagues. 

One of those people is a young Beverley man called Bradley Kirkby.

Brad is 18 years-old and came to work with us in 2017 as an Apprentice Light Vehicle Fleet Technician in the workshop of the Emergency Services Fleet Management (Humberside) (ESFM)* unit at Melton.

Brad is a student at Scunthorpe’s North Lindsey College and is serving his full apprenticeship at ESFM undertaking diagnostics all the way through to major repair works on the vehicles that form the fleet for Humberside Police and Humberside Fire and Rescue along with NHS first-responder Paramedic vehicles.

Brad has recently been awarded the Motor Vehicle Apprentice of the Year for North Lindsey College, beating over 60 other apprentices from the college and won the Hull Daily Mail Golden Apple Apprentice of the Year Award, overcoming 600 applicants to win.

Dave West, Brad’s Motor Vehicle Tutor at East Lindsey College praises him highly saying, “Since joining the group, Bradley has made excellent progress. Having completed his Gateway 1 assessment earlier than anticipated he’s now working towards Gateway 2. He’s always hardworking and comes with the right attitude to learn”.

Needless to say we are very proud of Brad and wanted to find out a bit more about him and his job.

We asked Brad if being a technician was something he’d always wanted to do, he said, “Yes it is, in fact when I was younger I actually wanted to be a police officer but as I got to secondary school and started to do engineering my focus changed and I wanted to become a mechanic.  So now I have the best of both worlds here with exactly what I wanted to do, with the people I wanted to work with, in one place.”

Brad went on to say, “The breadth of experience in the workshop, with 16 mechanics and technicians with over 200 combined years of knowledge and experience to call upon, helps me gain such valuable skills and what the other technicians don’t know isn’t worth knowing.   They are all specialists and know everything about the fleet of vehicles we need to know and share their knowledge with me every day.”

Brad is able work on several different vehicles, including Peugeots, Vauxhalls and Landrovers but we asked him what his favourite one was to work on. “Oh that’s easy, I love working on the Beemers, the BMWs.  To me it’s just a status symbol really and when I take out an X5 to test drive it, the position on the road is unbelievable.  I like them that much that I have been out and bought one!”

Having already served 20 months as an apprentice Brad should be completing his light vehicle training in June/July 2019 and aims to go on to train in the heavy vehicles.  After his apprenticeship Brad plans to stay with ESFM, “I am wanting to climb the ladder here and go as far as possible.

“I have a really positive attitude which helps when you work in a workshop like this.  The young lads that work in the workshop are the future of this team and if we don’t look at it positively and enthusiastically then we are never going to go anywhere.  It’s a great place to work and there is every reason to be positive about the job and my future here.

“This workshop has got to be up there as being one of the best in the country.  The job itself has got to be one of the best in the country too, I talk to the people I go to college with and no one can even comprehend what kind of job I have got here, because of the variety of stuff I work on.

“We are not a specialist in one thing or vehicle, we get to work on a small variety of vehicles that we become specialists on. The facilities in the workshop are just second to none.

“The way people support and encourage me here is brilliant, a few months ago Phil (Phil Bennett the Workshop Supervisor) gave me my first engine job to do after being here for just nearly a year and I thought it was great. He’s got the trust in me to do that now, what’s it going to be like in two or three years’ time?”

We asked Phil to tell us what makes Brad such a great asset to the team, “By means of his natural persona and positive work ethic Brad has settled in at ESFM very easily.  He is a popular team member who engages in his daily duties both effectively and efficiently. 

“His learning and development accolades acquired through college are highly commendable and this is reflected in his recent PDR which demonstrates Brad’s continued commitment to his progression.  Above all Brad starts and finishes work with a smile which serves as recognition that his effort and input is met with reciprocal value”.

We wish Bradley every success in completing his career and we are proud to call him a member of #TeamHumberside and look forward to watching his progress in life.

* ESFM is a collaborative venture between Humberside Fire and Rescue and Humberside Police and provides fleet management and engineering technical support to both.  The purpose-built facility brings together the skills and experience of both organisations with a huge workshop where all vehicles are maintained, serviced and repaired.

If you are interested in apprentice opportunities with Humberside Police you can register an interest hear – who knows where it will lead – maybe you will be the next Apprentice of the Year. https://www.humberside.police.uk/apprenticeships