KMF Group’s (www.kmf.co.uk) managing director, Gareth Higgins, has been awarded an MBE for services to apprenticeships.

Newcastle Under Lyme-based KMF — a leading sheet metal fabricator and precision engineering firm with 550 employees — operates its own in-house training programme and also organises a Young Engineer of the Year competition, which involves hundreds of local students every year and fires their enthusiasm for engineering.

In the last 10 years, the company has supported over 100 young people through apprenticeships in engineering, and 14 of them have progressed to degree-level apprenticeships.

In March last year, KMF beat off stiff competition from the likes of Jaguar Land Rover and BMW to win the Skills Innovation Award at the Semta Skills Awards for its work with apprentices.

Mr Higgins worked in the Royal Navy as a weapons technician between 1987 and 1992, later joining the engineering firm co-founded by his father.

He has overseen KMF’s continued growth and success over the last 25 years.