Six Apprentices Start at Kettering — the First Intake in Over 15 Years

Six apprentices started at the Kettering works on 14 September 2026: three in machining, two in fitting and one in the foundry. It is the first apprentice intake Timsons has taken on in more than fifteen years.

“This intake is the start of a new generation of Timsons innovators,” said Giovanni Piazza, Managing Director of Timsons. “The engineers trained at this works built the presses the world’s books were printed on, and these six will help guide the industry into its next phase of innovation. We are delighted to welcome them.”

Cast, machined and built on one site

Every Timson press is cast in the works’ own foundry, machined in its own shop and assembled on the same floor — and the apprentices are going into exactly those trades. They join the teams that build and service the T48A, the T48A ZMR and the Rotary FlexFold, and that keep Timson presses built decades ago in daily production.

A new phase of growth

The intake arrives as the company enters a new phase. Clays, the largest single-site book printer in Britain, has ordered two ZMR presses for its Bungay plant, with further machines to follow through 2027. With the works building again and the order book growing, Timsons is positioned to once again be an industry leader in Europe and North America.

The class of 2026

A 130-year legacy, carried forward

Timsons has engineered printing machinery in Kettering since 1896, and its first formal apprenticeship scheme began in 1950 — many of today’s senior engineers came through it. The six who started this month are the next chapter of that story: the skills that built the company, passed to the people who will carry them into its future.