From the armed forces to construction

Craig Foster joined B Price Ltd in February 2015 as an apprentice carpenter.

He was at college 1 day a week, whilst working on site for 4 days a week.

Following a career in the armed forces, he relished a new challenge, something he could get stuck into and progress through. And like so many others, he moved to the construction industry – building a successful career in the process, progressing from an apprentice to supervisor.

“After coming out of the armed forces nearly 9 years ago, I was struggling to find a new challenge, something to get my teeth into,” he said. “Although before coming to B Price, I did have some previous civilian jobs such as exhibition building and other bits and pieces, there was nothing really challenging enough for me.

Then I found the carpentry apprenticeship at B Price and really came into my own. At the beginning of the apprenticeship, I didn’t really know what to expect, my first ‘real’ civilian job after coming out of the forces and my first real step into a new career.

It was daunting at first, but the management and other peers at B Price made me feel welcome and like I was part of the family. The first couple of years of my apprenticeship was spent on the tools with other apprentices, mainly fitting out new office complexes and learning different tricks of the trade.

Those skills learnt in my first few years have been an invaluable resource to me on my career journey. The comradery atmosphere of being on the tools has meant that I now have a good group of friends and work colleagues that creates the great work atmosphere here at B Price.

The support from both management at B Price and CITB, my apprenticeship provider meant that I was able to really focus and develop in my role.

Once the apprenticeship was completed, it became obvious to me that I wanted to pursue a career in construction and progress even further. B Price offered me the support and training to move on and become a site supervisor which is the role I have now.”

Like all apprentices, Craig was supported throughout his programme by his employer and his training provider, ensuring he could learn all of the vital on and off-the-job skills to succeed in construction.

Libby Price, from B Price Ltd, said:

“Throughout his apprenticeship both he – and B Price Ltd – were supported by CITB in terms of getting all of the relevant qualifications for Craig, and for B Price accessing funding and every day advice.

Craig worked quickly and efficiently through his Level 2 and Level 3 apprenticeships learning not only practical, hands on carpentry skills which he could use on site – but also site management and project management skills.

Since qualifying Craig has progressed well, supervising other apprentices coming up behind him – and also running projects on site for B Price.

Craig has excellent technical skills – but also great interpersonal skills – meaning he works well with the B Price team and meeting our clients demands.

It is important to B Price that we recruit the right people into our business, we support them in every way that we can, we offer first class on site training for all of our employees and ensure that we keep up with the ever changing health and safety requirements.

By doing this we retain good staff and the business benefits from having reliable and committed personnel whose work always meets the highest standards.”

Craig is full of encouragement for anyone considering a career in construction:

“There are many reasons why I enjoy my career in construction, including the friendships you gain from working on big projects with both colleagues and clients, the challenge of problem solving and figuring out how to get a project to come to life, gaining transferrable skills that I am able to apply in all aspects of my life, management and organization of logistics and most of all the satisfaction you gain seeing a project through from design stages all the way through to completion.

The future for me looks bright and I am now working on the next stage of my career with the support and help from management at B Price. This has all been possible because I took the leap and became an apprentice.

I would highly recommend this path of career - to anyone looking or thinking about becoming an apprentice, my advice is just do it!“