Baxi recently welcomed key industry stakeholders, including representatives from the merchant sector, to the new Solutions Academy at its Warwick headquarters as the business continues to showcase its efforts to address the skills gap within the installer community and the wider sector.
Guests included representatives from Department of Energy Security and Net Zero, MCS and Chartered Institute of Housing, the Builders Merchants Federation and Wolseley among others, all with an agenda to understand how the supply chain can help deliver sustainable heating solutions in buildings over the years ahead.
The state-of-the-art training centre aims to equip heating engineers and others in the industry (bespoke training programmes, for example, are available for those in the merchant sector) with the right skills and knowledge to help customers decarbonise heat and hot water, with the 10,000 sqft facility set to train 2,000 delegates by 2025.
Visitors were taken on a tour by Head of Training Solutions, Ian Trott (pictured above), to explore the result of Baxi’s latest training investment and how the concept is set to be rolled out across its training centres and satellite centres around the UK. This included the dedicated solutions training room where installers are encouraged to get hands-on with Baxi’s complete portfolio of residential and commercial solutions, and the manufacturer’s digital studio which supports its new e-learning platform.
The day also included presentations from Baxi’s Managing Director, Jan Rijnen, and Product and Solutions Director, Paul Haynes, on the company’s continued commitment to developing training for the energy transition.
Baxi’s 2024 Installer Skills Survey, conducted in partnership with green supply chain consultancy Gemserv, was also launched to delegates, providing new insight into perceptions of heat pump training. Highlighting the slow uptake for training in low carbon technologies, the survey reinforced the need for industry, government and professionals to collaborate to drive more demand for heat pumps.
Guest presentations from the Heat Pump Association, Builders Merchants Federation, Wolseley Group and the Ground Source Heat Pump Association were followed by a panel discussion around the need for the entire heating supply chain to collaborate in order to prioritise training.
Speaking on the day, Jan Rijnen said: “The closure of the skills gap through training is vital to the energy transition but we cannot do it alone. The entire supply chain, government, the media and heating professionals have to work together to drive awareness of and engagement with new training initiatives as we look to address the skills gap and drive demand for of new technologies.
“This is what our event was all about. We wanted to bring together stakeholders from across the industry to share not only how we are tackling the skills conundrum and our learnings along the way, but to also hear from different areas of the industry and begin working together to improve the situation.”
Jan continued: “We are looking forward to continuing this collaboration into the future with the aim of ensuring the right training infrastructure is in place to support the energy transition across the UK and Ireland.”
To find out more about the latest results of Baxi’s 2024 Installer Skills Survey, click here.
