Prime Minister Andy Burnham has announced the launch of new technical education routes during a visit to Alstom’s Litchurch Lane Works factory in Derby.
During his visit, the Prime Minister met with around 100 current and former apprentices, as well as graduates from Alstom and its supply chain partners, including Derby-born Chloe Turnbull and Walsall-born Yasha Sidiqui.
Chloe, who changed her career after working in a pharmacy at age 23, works with Alstom as a Process Engineer, and is now overseeing the manufacture of a set of ten Class 345 Aventra trains destined for London’s Elizabeth line.
Meanwhile, Yasha, who was named Graduate of the Year at the 2025 RailStaff Awards, completed graduate placements across the site’s Engineering teams, and is now a Product Cost Engineer, allowing her to explore ideas at the design stage of new trains.
Rob Whyte, Managing Director UK at Alstom, said:We were delighted to welcome the Prime Minister and members of his Cabinet to Derby Litchurch Lane Works to meet apprentices and graduates and showcase the future of UK train building, based in the city that will be home to Great British Railways.
Rail can be a core driver of reindustrialising Britain. Last year alone we spent over £720 million with almost 1,300 British businesses, supporting close to 11,000 British jobs in our supply chain. Plus, we are bolstering Britain's railway with £35 million of our own investment in Adessia, our new generation train, designed and engineered at Alstom in Derby to support GBR in achieving its objectives.
The Prime Minister plans to use public procurement to back British industry, and rail shows how that can deliver skills, jobs and economic growth at every level of the supply chain, in every part of the country.
Meanwhile, Alstom has celebrated its own contributions to the UK over the last year, including:
- Directly employing nearly 4,900 staff across 36 sites
- Nearly 11,000 jobs supported across the country through its supply chain
- Supporting close to 1 billion GBP in GDP
- Over 720 million GBP spent with almost 1,300 British-based suppliers
- 33% of this spend with UK-based SMEs
- Around £100 million exported by UK suppliers to Alstom entities in 37 countries
- 191.5 million GBP of social value delivery
The Prime Minister’s visit landed almost a year to the day since the launch of The Greatest Gathering, which saw Alstom open the doors to the Litchurch Lane site for the first time in nearly 50 years. The event saw the attendance of more than 40,000 visitors from across the world over the course of three days, as well as the world’s largest-ever gathering of both rolling stock and rail-relate exhibits.
