The work of the University of Sheffield's AMRC Training Centre is highlighted in a new report, showing how universities and employers are joining forces to create a new generation of highly skilled employees.

The report, 'Forging Futures: Building higher level skills through university and employer collaboration', has been published by Universities UK and the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES).

It examines how employers and universities are working together to help young people train for and secure highly skilled jobs crucial to the UK's economic future.

The report highlights the way the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre's Training Centre provides training in the practical and academic skills that manufacturing companies need to compete globally.

The report says: "The AMRC Training Centre has experienced great success because it has focused on creating innovative solutions to what can be complex customer requirements, particularly in the advanced manufacturing sector."

"Employers can draw on the skills of a highly trained workforce, exposed to the very best in high-value manufacturing, while the University can develop the expertise of the next generation of manufacturing for the region's SMEs and economic strength."

The report goes on to quote Hamid Mughal, Global Director of Manufacturing for Rolls Royce, who said during a speech at the AMRC Training Centre earlier this year: "If I was 16 and had 100 choices about where to become an engineer, I would choose here.

"I believe that in the future, when people think about what the AMRC produced, the most important thing will be that it made a new kind of engineer."

AMRC Training Centre Director of Training, Alison Bettac, said: "The AMRC Training Centre is a game changer for social mobility.

"Many young people from less well-off families worry about taking on the financial burden of a university degree course.

"The AMRC Training Centre gives them the opportunity to take an advanced industrial apprenticeship and go on to complete a degree course, an MSc and PhD if they want - fully funded by the companies that employ them."

Professor John Coyne, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Derby and UKCES Commissioner, said: "There is no one-size-fits-all solution for people to gain the skills they need.

"Work-based courses are an alternative way for young people and experienced workers to gain high-level skills, and from the report it's clear there is a lot of great work taking place.

"A quiet revolution is happening in UK universities, but we need more of these university-employer partnerships - and more awareness of work-based routes - so it is a cultural norm to see them as alternatives to the traditional degree."