Midland Tool and Design has joined forces with Dudley College in a bid to reverse the decline in the take-up of engineering apprenticeships in the West Midlands.

The Black Country firm has established the partnership to help aspiring engineers gain NVQ qualifications and practical on-the-job experience. They will spend one day a week at the college, picking up basic engineering skills, and the rest at MTD's Tipton headquarters.

A busy year for the company, with turnover likely to be up 50% on 2009 (to around £3m), has encouraged them to expand their 35-strong workforce.

And while they added nine new staff in 2010, bosses were surprised at the lack of West Midlands youngsters looking for apprenticeships.

MD Darren Booton said: "Engineering apprenticeships are becoming more popular around the country, apparently, but this has not been the case in our experience.

"The need for apprentices in our industry has never been greater as manufacturing and engineering are making strong recoveries from the recession.

"And we thought in the country's manufacturing heartland - the West Midlands - we would have no shortage of suitable applicants.

"Sadly that's not happened, so we teamed up with Dudley College to help grow our own business and benefit the region's manufacturing sector as a whole."

The firm has already taken on their first apprentice, 19-year-old Gareth Vickers, and will be looking to add another two or three in 2011.

Much of their success in 2010 came after they gained the AS9100 accreditation, which has brought in several projects related to the A380 Airbus, and launched Modulam, their unique prototyping system.

They have also been heavily involved in work for the New York underground system.