Long time lurker but saw this and signed up.
I'm 24 and started my apprenticeship straight from school, I work for a company where our prime area of work is the industrial sector.
I design control panels and their associated safety systems, program PLC's from the basic EASY relays, to the high end AB/ Schneider modular gear. I or one of our lads build the panels and then we install them.
But we have struggled to find anyone that we deem competent enough to supplement our team and feel that unless we train from apprentices (There have been 2 since me) we just cannot find anyone with the required skills.
Speaking from experience of the Apprenticeship scheme which taught me very well in cable calcs the regs ect which was more than enough to take in but we only did one half day on any sort of industrial/ motor control systems. we wired a brook DOL starter, theres no wonder nobody else knows what's going on apart from the well trained/ grandfather rights of the elder generation.