The Motus Commercials apprentice, who works as part of a close-knit team of four at its Deeside LCV dealership in north Wales, started working at the company while looking for a job in her early 20s. Fed up of sixth form, she got a job for a few years with no particular plan in mind, but became a service advisor after her father, an HGV mechanic, highlighted a vacancy at his garage, a Motus Commercials predecessor. “As soon as I started, I knew this was the industry that I wanted to be in,” she recalls, but, lacking a route to progress in that department, she switched to a sales admin role. Still, she missed the workshop – both the banter, and the technicians that were keeping Britain’s HGVs on the move.
She credits DAF’s training courses in Haddenham not only for being high-quality but also for providing the opportunity for a life-changing conversation with a trainer, who happened to be the first female technician Edwards had ever met.
Returning home, and supported by her manager, Edwards decided to apply for a technical apprenticeship. As the dealership split between HGV and LCV around that time, Edwards chose the smaller vehicles to better suit her physical size. “I don’t want to be asking for help every five minutes because I can’t lift something or move something. If I was physically built differently, I would have gone for trucks. As it is, some of the LCV parts are heavy enough for me, so I’m happy to stay on Fiat Professional,” she says, referring to one of the Stellantis van brands serviced by Motus. Next year she finishes her Level 3 apprenticeship with Motus and training provider Calex, with block release to the Stellantis Training & Technical Centre in Coventry.
FAVOURITE FIX
Edwards says that her favourite job so far – and her apprenticeship includes an EV qualification – was one on a diesel van that made her think. “We’ve had quite a few Ducatos come in with weird electrical faults: windscreen wipers that wouldn’t stop, or wouldn’t come on. It turned out that the problem was that they had been jump-started with the wrong earth, and that had melted the harness behind the wiper motor assembly. The only fix was to replace the wiring harness. By changing the wire harness, you see so many components that you really understand what the harness is doing. Because electricity is invisible, I find that more interesting to work out what’s gone wrong, where it’s going and how to fix it.”
Asked how she has fitted in as a female in a male-dominated environment, she observes: “When I first started the apprenticeship, a lot of people looked at me as though I was a golden goose. They didn’t know how to speak to me, and some lads didn’t interact with me. I do think that, now I have proved that I am capable and serious, everyone’s warmed to the idea.”
She continues: “I’m not too bothered to work with all men or half men/half women, but it’s nice to know other women, to know that we are allowed in this space; allowed to take part.”
Edwards heard about the IMI inclusivity campaign through social media, and signed up as a way to offer encouragement to young people that she personally did not have growing up. She says: “I am not the image of a technician in the mind of the general public. But anyone can give this a go. In school, it was the naughty ones that were told to go to college to learn a trade. To me that’s a massive shame, because the industry is changing: it’s not servicing and component remove-and-replace.
“Especially with EVs, you have to do more thinking; you’re going to have to do maths, and be able to problem-solve, and as much as you can get those skills at college, it would be amazing to have a more diverse workplace, because then problem-solving would be easier, because people from different backgrounds and points of view have different ways of thinking.”