Chancellor of the Exchequer visits Silverstone UTC

Rachel Reeves MP made her first school visit as Chancellor of the Exchequer to Silverstone UTC yesterday to mark Amazon’s announcement of an £8 billion investment in new UK data centres.

The visit provided an opportunity to highlight female leadership role models to students as Reeves – the UK’s first female chancellor – was photographed with Silverstone UTC’s Principal Angela Murphy, Vice President and Managing Director for Amazon Web Services in Europe Tanuja Randery, and the incoming chief executive of UTC support body the Baker Dearing Educational Trust, Kate Ambrosi.

The UTC (University Technical College) is a secondary school for 14 to 19 year olds specialising in high performance engineering, business and technical fields, as well as events management.

It was chosen to host the announcement due to its close links to Amazon Web Services (AWS). The UTC has recently opened an Amazon Digital Futures lab, which is used by UTC students studying computer science qualifications, to help prepare them for possible careers with AWS.

During her visit, Reeves was shown around the school by Murphy and met an array of impressive engineering, computer science and business students.

The learners presented manufacturing projects to the chancellor and discussed how they were acquainting themselves with data centres through a tour on virtual reality headsets.

This is the second visit by a high-profile politician to Silverstone UTC this year, after then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak MP visited in June.

Amazon has developed close links with the UTC programme

The visit was supported by the Baker Dearing Educational Trust, which founded and supports England’s 44-strong network of University Technical Colleges.

Baker Dearing has, with the UTC network, developed close links with Amazon. The company hosted a careers and networking event for young female and non-binary UTC students at its London headquarters last year.

UTCs delivering flagship T Level qualifications are working with Amazon to offer industry placements to students, who need to complete 315 hours of work experience as part of the course.

Silverstone UTC Principal Angela Murphy commented:

“I am very proud that Silverstone UTC played host to Rachel Reeves and AWS yesterday. We pride ourselves on our links with employers, so this is excellent recognition of the strength of our partnership with Amazon.

“The visit was also a perfect opportunity to demonstrate the cutting-edge equipment we have at the UTC. By learning on the same kit that industry professionals use, our students are properly prepared for working life.”

Chief Executive of the Baker Dearing Educational Trust Simon Connell commented:

“We were very pleased to be able to showcase a UTC to the chancellor. The UTC network has had a tremendously successful start to the year, with high student enrolment across the network. Many UTC students who left at the end of last year will also have progressed onto some really strong destinations.

“All of which exemplifies why the UTC network that we support is the best means of delivering high-quality, employer-led technical education at a secondary school level. Silverstone UTC is a great example of the UTC model in action.

“The students who supported the visit were wonderful ambassadors and I hope the chancellor left here with a clear idea of the potential of these young people to drive economic growth in key sectors such as data.”