Coming from the oil capital of Europe, you couldn’t help but be heavily influenced by engineering, no matter what avenue you went down the opportunities were endless. I always knew I wanted to get into engineering but wasn’t sure what path to take. When I first found out about CNC Machining it ticked all my boxes – it’s a job where at the end of the day you have a tangible component you can hold and know you’ve produced it to meet all the drawing specifications. It’s very satisfying and gives you a lot of job satisfaction.

Engineering and Manufacturing keeps the world moving forward, almost everything you use on the daily has had a machine involved somewhere along the line. It’s an awesome industry to be involved in. The room for growth is huge and with
many different career paths to be taken, there are lots of opportunities to keep learning and challenging yourself.

CNC Machining is a hidden secret. It’s a career with endless possibilities for great career progression. It’s a highly skilled job that can take you anywhere in the world.
Being able to show students the many possible career paths, taking them around our MTONZ Member companies and seeing them amazed by what’s out there is very rewarding.

The industry has a problem that only the industry can fix. The reality is the industry has been suffering for many years due to a skills shortage and a lack of students taking up apprenticeships. Without creating a constant influx of apprentices, companies will continue to struggle to employ skilled machinists in the long run.

This is a long-term problem that requires a long-term solution. If companies want to continue to grow and develop, they need to invest in the future. We need companies to come together to be able to grow the trade nationwide and ensure sustainability.

The simple truth is that the many students and schools I speak to aren’t even aware of the CNC machining industry as a potential career pathway. MTONZ is working to correct this and bring much-needed awareness to the industry, to inspire the next generation of machinists.