Career driven Cardiff and Vale College student Matthew en route to a job with Aston Martin

An Aircraft Engineering student from Cardiff and Vale College will be among the first cohort of expert workers at Aston Martin’s new luxury car factory at St Athan.

Twenty-nine-year-old Matthew Griffiths, who lives in Newport, has been offered a job as a Build Technician at the prestige car manufacturer. Matthew will now relocate to the company’s headquarters in the Midlands for two years’ training before returning to Wales to work at the St Athan factory when it opens in 2018.

“Matthew is so thrilled about a job offer from Aston Martin,” CAVC Dean of Technology and Creative Industries Ian Cowell said. “He’s been a fantastic student and he really has done everything that a young person should do to progress on to the perfect job for them.

“Everyone here at ICAT is really, really pleased for Matthew and we’re all very proud of his achievement.”

Level 3 Aero Engineering student Matthew has always been fascinated by car design and build, and saw aero qualifications from CAVC’s International Centre for Aerospace Training (ICAT) as a route to his ideal career.

“Being offered a job with Aston Martin is incredible – I came to the College to study Aircraft Engineering with the intention of going on to do something with Formula 1cars,” he explained. “I wanted to have an aero perspective as my hero Adrian Newey – one of the most successful racing car designers – did the aero side and looked into the theme of flight as aerodynamics is really important.”

After working in retail for eight years, Matthew decided the job was not for him and decided to come to College to learn new skills that would help him achieve his dream of working with high performance cars.

“I wanted a change, I wanted to be a bit more ambitious,” he said. “I’ve always wanted to for cars and the design of cars as a career.

“The course here at ICAT has been amazing; the tutors are a real fountain of knowledge and Ian is so helpful and cares so much about all the students – it’s been really great here.”

Aston Martin was not the original plan for Matthew, who starts his training on August 1^st.

“I’d already had an unconditional offer to study Motor Sport Engineering at Swansea University,” he explained. “But I came here to the recruitment open day, not really expecting anything to come of it.

“The facilities at Swansea University are amazing but I was blown away when I was offered a job with Aston Martin. Learning while actually gaining work experience at Aston Martin is such a fantastic, exciting opportunity for me.”

The new Aston Martin plant, where its new DBX car will be made, will create 750 highly-skilled jobs and will include a skills academy, making St Athan and the Vale of Glamorgan a centre of excellence. Aston Martin has held a series of recruitment events at ICAT, generating a huge amount of interest across the region.

ENDS

Notes to editors

• Photos show (l-r) CAVC Dean of Technology and Creative Industries Ian Cowell, Mark Trinder from Aston Martin, Matthew Griffiths, David Grainger from Aston Martin and Matthew Griffiths stood outside ICAT
• Cardiff and Vale College is one of the top companies for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in the National Centre for Diversity’s 2016 Top 100 Index
• Cardiff and Vale College was awarded College of the Year at the 2015 Insider Business and Education Partnership Awards
• Apply now to join CAVC in Sept 2016: visit for details
• Why not follow the latest updates from Cardiff and Vale College on Facebook or Twitter @cavc?

For more information contact:

Chris Baker

Communications Officer

Tel: 01446 725003. Mob: 07932 770938

[email protected]