Jaguar Land Rover has announced its new ‘Future Skills Programme’ in a bid to “upskill” 29,000 of its people over the next three years ahead of the company’s full transition to electrification.
The program, which will feature 10,000 immediate JLR employees as well as nearly 19,000 of its franchised technicians across the world – more than 60 per cent of its workforce – in skills “vital to electrification, digital and autonomous cars.” The move is part of JLR’s ‘Reimagine’ strategy, which will see both brand’s luxury models available in pure electric mode by the end of the decade.
Though close to 80 per cent of JLR’s retailers worldwide offer electric vehicle servicing, the program will focus on the safety standards required while working with each vehicle’s high-voltage electrical systems. Though technicians are the primary target for the program, JLR does state that “plant employees at all levels will require training” as EV production ramps up, with thousands of engineers that hitherto have worked on only internal-combustion-engined vehicles also required to complete re-training.
Apprentices under the Jaguar Land Rover Academy and across its retailers worldwide are also being earmarked for the program, suggesting ‘Future Skills’ will become a mandatory part of JLR’s employee training as we enter the latter half of the decade.
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“Our plans to electrify our product portfolio are running at pace, and we are rapidly scaling up our future skills training programme to ensure we have the right talent to deliver the world’s most desirable modern luxury electric vehicles,” JLR industrial operations executive director Barbara Bergmeier explains. “Developing the skilled global workforces needed to design, build and maintain the vehicles of the future is foundational.
“I’m proud to say we are committing to help plug the electric and digital skills gap with a comprehensive, global training programme, which will power charge electrification both here in the UK and abroad.”
Plug-in hybrid examples of the Range Rover and Range Rover Sport have already been introduced, with the all-electric I-PACE SUV expected to lead Jaguar’s all-electric fleet from 2025 onwards. A new range of electric models, set to sit atop a brand new EV-dedicated platform, has also been mooted by Jaguar CEO Thierry Bolloré, though no further details have been provided.