“To be honoured for a second time with a Princess Royal Training Award is amazing,” said Stewart Edmondson, CEO of the non-profit organisation (right).
“It is wonderful recognition of the sustained impact of our Scheme. It reflects the dedication of everyone involved our team, our university partners, and the employers who sponsor our amazing Scholars. Together, we are building the next generation of Electronics Engineers.”
The City & Guilds Foundation grants the national award, with personal approval by HRH The Princess Royal. Its goal is to highlight organisations delivering outstanding skills development with proven impact in their sector.
In what is the tenth anniversary of the Princess Royal Training Award, the logos of all the 2025 winners can be seen, right.
Scholarships
The UKESF highlights that since 2010 it has awarded more than 900 such scholarships. Impressively, 79% of them achieve First-class degrees. Also, 90% of the graduates still work in Electronics or Technology roles
The scholarship programme aims to address the UK’s critical shortage of Electronics Engineers. Notably, the demand for capable graduates far outstrips supply. And the UKESF scheme tackles this through targeted skills development.
It sees hundreds of applications from undergraduates studying at one of the UKESF’s 27 partner universities. And they link with sponsoring employees that range, for example, from Siemens, AMD and EDA Solutions to the CSA Catapult, Renesas Electronics and Garfield Microelectronics…
Many winners of Electronics Weekly‘s own BrightSparks awards, too, have been UKESF scholars.
As mentioned, this is its second award. In 2022 the UKESF won a Princess Royal Training Award special commendation for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion.
UKESF
The UKESF is an educational charity dating from 2010 that works to tackle the national skills shortage for electronics, especially semiconductor design and manufacture.
See also: UKESF takes first STEP for Semiconductor: Skills, Talent and Education Programme
