A Swindon based engineering firm is helping members of the town’s 500 strong Ukrainian community rebuild their lives by offering long term skilled employment, training, and progression, rather than short term or low skilled work.
Kaliber, a defence and aerospace manufacturer based at Rushy Platt, employs more than 60 operators on its manufacturing floor. Just over 10% of those roles are held by Ukrainian staff who arrived in the UK following the war in Ukraine.
For Managing Director Lawrence Ponting, the decision to employ Ukrainian refugees goes beyond filling vacancies.
“We’ve given them opportunities to prove themselves and give them a new life and support them in many ways, not just giving them a job,” he said.
“They’ve come from a country at war, and for me the biggest positive I get out of life is supporting others and giving something back.”
The company designs and manufactures complex electrical and mechanical systems for the defence and aerospace sectors. The work requires precision, patience, and extensive training.
Rather than recruiting experienced staff, Kaliber trains people from scratch. This includes teaching employees how to read technical drawings, understand wiring schematics, and build products from start to finish.
That approach has allowed people with no previous experience in the industry, including Ukrainian refugees, to develop long term careers.
Lawrence believes motivation and work ethic have been key factors in their progress.
“People from Eastern Europe are very hard working. They just get down and do it,” he said.
“They’re enthusiastic to learn and to grow within the company, and because this industry isn’t very well known, we train everybody anyway.”
Language barriers have been managed through team support rather than treated as a barrier to progression.
“Most of the Europeans who come in have learnt English, and their English is very good,” Lawrence explained.
“The difficulty is technical English, so we allow them to speak in their own language to each other. Those who understand the technical side better help others understand what we’re asking them to do.”
That approach has helped staff progress into senior roles, with some employees moving on to become team leaders and supervisors.
Production Manager Shaun Ponting said the company’s training model is designed to create opportunities for people from all backgrounds.
“We don’t take people who already have experience and just drop them in,” he said.
“We train people who have just come out of college, or from any walk of life really, and we’ve been very successful with that.”
He added that several members of the engineering team started with no prior knowledge of wire harnessing.
“They came in knowing absolutely nothing, worked their way up to team leader, and now they’re engineers. There’s a real pathway here.”
For Swindon’s Ukrainian community, roles like these offer stability and the chance to build a future through skilled work.
For the business, it has reinforced a culture focused on loyalty, retention, and long term development.
“Having your own business is a social experiment in a way,” Lawrence said.
“If you can give people opportunities to be something they never thought they could be, that’s what really matters.”
