The company aims to train up to 2,000 people a year on a range of construction courses. Five years and one pandemic later, Accxel has moved from two temporary office buildings to a £3m training centre. King, who originally trained as a barrister, left the legal profession to work as a land manager for Kier Living, rising through the ranks of the contractor’s former housing arm before joining his sister to Accxel. Bird continues to work for Bell as director of security and business development. Its next batch of apprentices will start in September, while another cohort is halfway through ‘a training program that involves obtaining an NVQ. This course served as a precursor to further training offered by the company, which was fully launched in 2020. In January 2020, 15 apprentices left qualify It devised a basic training program in 2017, and with two temporary offices, one at this site in Cinderford and the other in Cardiff, around 23 apprentices started training in 2018.

Having initially trained as a beautician in Cardiff, Bird had spent four years in the family construction business when he spotted a piece of land next to KM Bell’s head office. We take the recruitment headache away from the employer” Natalie King, Accel “All the apprentices who come have a guaranteed job ready when they leave. And, for people who want to enter the construction sector, it opens doors”. We take the headache of recruitment away from the employer. It was about putting a marker on the ground and saying “we will change the face of construction”. King, director of growth and partnerships at Accxel, says: “People who come out of FE college or get your construction skills certification day card are not industry ready. Apprentices who sign up are linked to an employer and should have a job to go to when they qualify. The incorporation of contractorsĪccxel aims to review the way in which training is carried out through the incorporation of contractors. We have they range in age from 22 to 60 years old, and some have not been to a classroom since leaving school”.

But because this is for construction by construction people, they feel much more like they belong here. If you tell them to go to college or university, they often won’t go they feel completely intimidated. “People work in construction because they often know someone who can give them a job.

from its base in Cinderford, Gloucestershire.īird, Accxel’s founder and managing director, points out that construction can be “quick” in nature, making it more of a challenge to get workers into a classroom. Natalie King and Nicola Bird say the initial impetus to set up Accxel came from the frustration of not being able to find properly trained workers for the family business, KM Bell, an £80m contractor founded by their grandfather, who operates in Wales and the South West.

Bird bell hat