Southern Regional College (SRC) Welding Academy 26/27 - Application Form

Overview

Overview

This Welding Academy is supported by the Department for the Economy and delivered in partnership with the Southern Regional College (SRC), Portadown. It will provide 10 individuals with the skills to take up welding roles with one of the supporting companies: SFM Engineering, Keady and Walter Watson Ltd., Castlewellan. 

The Welding Academy consists of a six week training course where those selected for the academy will study core industry competencies which have been mapped to the City & Guilds Level 2 MIG Welding qualification.

RECRUITMENT PROCESS

Eligible applicants will be invited to an information session and interview which will be held week commencing Monday 4 May 2026 at the SWC Portadown Campus. 

TRAINING

Successful applicants must be able to attend six weeks intensive training at SRC’s Portadown campus starting Monday 18 May to Friday 26 June 2026. Training times are 9:15 to 17:15 Monday to Friday.

• Participants will be paid a £185 weekly training allowance while in training.
• Participants will be paid reasonable travel expenses covering their return journey from their place of residence to the college while in training.
• Participants may be eligible for assistance with childcare costs while in training.

Essential Criteria 

Applicants must:

• be at least 18 years old 
• have a right to work and to undertake Assured Skills Training in the UK at the point of application and not be disqualified from doing either by reason of their immigration status. Proof of this will be required in order to progress to interview.

Whilst there is no minimum level of qualifications required to apply for the academy, preference will be given to applicants with Level 2 or higher English and Maths, which will be verified before interview.

**Applicants should be aware that the companies may apply additional right to work criteria at point of employment and a job offer is not guaranteed.

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If living outside Northern Ireland – by accepting an offer of a place on this pre-employment training academy, you are committing to attending training and pursuing a job opportunity with one of the supporting companies based in Northern Ireland.

Applications Open

Applications are welcome from everyone who meets the essential criteria and are particularly welcome from persons returning to work from a period of caring for their children or other family members.

If you have a disability and require assistance in completing this form please email Assuredskills@economy-ni.gov.uk or by telephoning 028 9041 6972.

Correspondence Regarding Your Application

All correspondence relating to your application will be via email from assuredskills@economy-ni.gov.uk. It is your responsibility as applicant to act as required within the given time frame.

Email whitelisting helps ensure that important messages from known senders won’t end up in the spam folder.

To whitelist the assuredskills@economy-ni.gov.uk email address, you may wish to:

• Open your email client and navigate to the settings.
• Find the option to create a new filter or add a new contact.
• Add the email address assuredskills@economy-ni.gov.uk as a known contact/safe sender
• Save the changes.

The exact steps may vary depending on the email client you are using.

If you do not receive an email about your application by 1 May 2026 please contact assuredskills@economy-ni.gov.uk and put SRC Welding Academy 26/27 in the subject line.

To find out how we manage your information please see privacy notice below:

https://www.economy-ni.gov.uk/publications/assured-skills-academies-privacy-notice

If you wish to make a complaint about the Assured Skills programme, please email assured.skills@economy-ni.gov.uk or telephone 028 9041 6941.