Each year apprentices are hand-picked from over a hundred applicants and in any one year there are usually 20-25 young people at Symm learning the crafts of bricklaying, carpentry, wood machining, joinery and specialist decorating techniques.

Recognising the importance of providing a thorough and grounded education in their chosen trade, Symm operates a Five Year Apprentice Scheme.  This provides apprentices with a more thorough understanding of how the construction industry works and the associated skills required across the core building craft trades.  It also gives them more time to gain experience in their trade and to mature as individuals, ready for professional responsibility.

The apprentices first complete an NVQ2 then, instead of moving straight into NVQ3, they spend the third year training within the company on different aspects of the organisation. During the fourth year they return to college to complete their NVQ 3 with significantly greater capabilities, and the fifth year sees them shadowing a senior tradesperson to further strengthen their skills and abilities, encouraging their development into masters of their craft.

Many craftsmen have been with the company for decades. Some are second and even third generation. The skills they possess are rare and Symm treasures some of the finest craftsmen to be found anywhere in the world.

The Prince of Wales’s Building Crafts Apprenticeships

Symm is delighted also to provide placements each year for talented craftspeople on
The Prince of Wales’s Building Crafts Apprenticeships Programme.  This is an eight-month
programme offering building craftspeople the opportunity to enhance and advance their design knowledge and experience in traditional and sustainable building crafts.

Selected comments from some of those placed with Symm during 2010 – 2011 include:

My favourite activity was constructing the gate entrance at … with Symm as it was something different.

I feel that I have changed through taking part in the programme as now I’m more educated with new and traditional methods of work.

I was working on a 17th-century mansion and … I have learnt how large companies work in heritage and conservation at a property.  I have also learnt new methods and techniques to help in the conservation a property.