How an apprenticeship is helping Harry follow his dream to save lives using design
A Sheffield-based design engineer says his apprenticeship is helping him achieve his ambition to use his skills to help people — and follow in his late father’s footsteps.
At 25, Harry Britton is already four years into his engineering career. He holds an advanced apprenticeship, and is working towards a degree on the BEng in Manufacturing Technology apprenticeship at the University of Sheffield AMRC Training Centre — all while playing a hands-on role in protecting cancer treatment teams across the UK and Europe.
Now, in National Careers Week 2026, Harry is keen to encourage more school leavers to consider an apprenticeship. His choice to follow this route is shaped by a clear sense of ambition.
“The core of why I chose this path is simple — stability and direction,” he says. “An apprenticeship allows me to maintain a career while studying, with hands-on experience that I can immediately apply to my work.”
Building on his father’s legacy
This ambition is built on an unusual childhood. Harry grew up between Cambridge and Hong Kong, never staying at one school for more than two years.
“My dad was an engineer who moved a lot for work. Ever since I could see into the bonnet of a car, I was helping him fix engines,” he recalls. “A lot of kids would be taken to theme parks — I spent my weekends in aircraft hangars looking at jet engines.”
His father started out as an apprentice before rising to become a world-renowned aerospace engineer. “Seeing his dedication was a huge influence on me,” he says.
But at 17, Harry’s world changed overnight when his father died unexpectedly. “It was tragic and completely flipped my life upside down,” he says. “Seventeen is the age when you need your parents most.”
He returned to the UK and started at college, where his tutors introduced him to the idea of apprenticeships. “I’m a practical, visual learner,” he says. “I learn by doing. And the best way to get hands-on experience is to go to work. The apprenticeship gave me the stability I needed at a time when my world had been upended by my dad’s death.”
Using engineering to help people
He started a Level 3 apprenticeship in Cambridge designing auto-injectors for a medical technology company. After that he applied for a degree apprenticeship at the AMRC working as a design engineer in nuclear medicine at Bright Technologies (Britec). The specialist firm manufactures radiation protection for healthcare workers in the NHS and across Europe.
“I applied for jobs all over the country,” he says. “As soon as I saw the one at Britec I instantly fell in love with the role. I remember them showing me around and I kept picking things up and touching things, just itching to get involved.”
It was the link to healthcare that stood out for Harry. “We outfit new hospitals with equipment such as lead-lined units for cancer treatment departments and handling equipment so doctors and nurses don’t have to touch anything radioactive,” he explains.
In his current role, he designs components and bespoke shielding solutions for hospital wards, keeping healthcare professionals safe.
“Working in radiation is really interesting,” he says. “When my father died, I felt driven to apply my skills to help others. Working as a design engineer in the world of cancer treatment and research, I get to turn my hobby into life-saving work.”
The apprenticeship journey
Harry is now six months into his degree apprenticeship at the AMRC Training Centre in Sheffield. “I’m only 25,” he says. “I’ll come out of it with a degree and seven years’ experience. I’m ahead of other people my age.”
As a design engineer, he works extensively with computer-aided design (CAD) software. The tools he uses when studying are the same as those used at work. “I learn something one day at the AMRC Training Centre and take it to work the next day,” he says. “It saves my company having to train me at that level — they’re investing in me, and it benefits everyone.”
He credits the AMRC Training Centre with inspiring him every day. “This is the place to go if you want to be an engineer,” he says. “It's the whole environment — there's even a Formula 1 car in the reception. The workshop is full of machines as far as the eye can see, all well-maintained. It’s clearly designed to deliver top-quality training. When you see people putting that much effort into training you, it makes you want to match that effort.”
Having moved from Cambridge, he has also embraced life in South Yorkshire. “Everyone’s so friendly in Sheffield,” he says with a smile. “It’s true that everyone is nicer in the north.”
A bright future
Looking ahead, Harry’s ambitions are clear-eyed. He plans to become a chartered engineer by the age of 35. “Chartership is about experience as much as education,” he says. “An apprenticeship is the best foundation for that because you’re building both at the same time.”
Long-term, he hopes to manage major projects, mentor apprentices of his own and eventually step into a senior leadership role — perhaps even becoming an engineering director or starting his own company.
“At the end of the day, I became an engineer because it’s what I’m good at,” he says. “But my apprenticeship and my company gave me the tools to actually change the world with those skills.”
Harry is passionate about how apprenticeships can transform lives. “People can too easily get on the ladder of school, uni, job, without considering an apprenticeship,” he says.
“I think everyone should be considering an apprenticeship first, before even looking at university. You come out with a degree, years of experience, and you’re instantly employable. If you know what career you want to do, it’s a no-brainer.”
For him, it’s a way of achieving his ambitions — and honouring his father’s legacy. “My dad was a creative person and that lives on in me,” he says. “Ultimately I want to lead the development of new solutions and try to make the world a better place. I’m sure he would be proud of me.”