SELEX in Basildon has been the base for high technology design and manufacturing since its predecessor, Marconi, set up in Christopher Martin Road in the Fifties. 
Generations of apprentices have learnt their skills here over the last 60 years. Matthew Scally is just one of the latest in this ongoing process.
At 23, Matthew – this year’s Selex apprentice of the year award winner – has just completed his four years of training and is now a fully qualified programmer at Selex’s machine component centre. His role is essentially to convert designs into programmes. These guide the tools that create the finished products.
Matthew is at work on advanced imaging equipment, which is much in demand by the military and emergency services. It has always been a speciality of this location. The world’s first thermal imaging cameras, for use by firefighters, were designed and built here in Basildon. The tradition, and the technical innovation, continue.
Like an increasing number of ambitious people in his age group, Matthew could easily have gone to university, but took the decision instead to take up an apprenticeship instead.
He said: “I did apply to university, and would have got in. But the uni itself actually advised me, if I had the choice, to follow the apprenticeship route.”
In fact, Matthew now has the best of both worlds. Selex is funding him through a degree in mechanical engineering at Anglia Ruskin University.
Matthew, from Benfleet, says that he originally planned to be a school teacher. “But when I did work experience at a school, I realised that it was not for me,” he said. “It was a family friend who suggested I tried Selex. I went there for work experience in the summer, and just fell in love with it, both the work and the company.”
One aspect of Selex as a workplace particularly appealed to Matthew. He said: “It’s quite unusual these days, but the manufacturing is still done here, as well as the design. So you are engaged with the entire life cycle of a product, from design, through programming, to manufacture and testing, to the finished product.”
Matthew’s apprenticeship lasted four years, during which time he moved from department to department, completing intensive three months stints in each. Having covered every aspect of Selex, he was then given his pick of departments to join permanently.
He said: “As it happened, the department I decided I wanted to join was my very first placement, the machine component centre. I liked them, and luckily they liked me.” Matt has learnt a lot during his apprenticeship years, but he says that the overriding lesson is that “you are never alone.”
He adds: “You are encouraged to take the initiative and increasing responsibility, but you also know that there is always good support at hand. You learn to ask for guidance when you need it, and who the right people are to ask.”
Matt’s enthusiasm for his work has led him to become an emissary. In this capacity, he travels to schools and job fairs to talk to other young people who might consider an engineering career.
He says one of the messages he is keen to get across is that mechanical engineering is not just a noisy, dirty job of metal bashing.
“A large part of the work is in an office,” he says. “But in fact I really enjoy the opportunity, when it comes, to get down to the manufacturing department and get involved with the machines.”
Matt may no longer be an apprentice, but the learning process at Selex continues – and hopefully will never stop.
“My dad says that when you stop learning on a job, you’re in the wrong job, and he’s right,” Matt says.