BMT Defence Services, a subsidiary of BMT Group, is delighted to announce that the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) Professional Development Standards Committee has once again accredited its Professional Development scheme for a further three years. The scheme, which has been running for the past 18 years, focuses on providing valuable mentoring, support and guidance for its graduate engineers.

The Monitored Professional Development Scheme (MPDS) is the Institution of Mechanical Engineers preferred, approved and quality controlled route for graduate engineers to complete their initial professional development, become corporate members of the institution and register with the Engineering Council as a Chartered Engineer (CEng) or Incorporated Engineer (IEng).

Through this scheme BMT not only provides graduates with mentoring and guidance which closely aligns with specific requirements set out by the Engineering Council, it also provides essential hands-on experience across a broad spectrum of technical and business competencies. From the very start, graduates will work on live projects for a variety of defence clients, gaining valuable exposure that enhances their future career development. Current BMT graduates for example, are working at the forefront of naval design and engineering on the prestigious military afloat reach and sustainability (MARS) tanker for the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, shaping the future of naval engineering as they learn.

Roy Quilliam, technical director at BMT Defence Services comments, "Here at BMT, we put great value on the professional status of our engineers in demonstrating the high calibre of people we employ, which is why we continue to invest in such an important and worthy scheme. We actively manage our graduates’ initial professional development across the range of interesting and challenging contracts that we hold.

"Our MPDS registrants can expect to work on design changes to in-service submarines and new surface ship design projects within their initial professional development period. The fact that this all takes place on live projects for real clients with the commercial business pressures that brings, greatly enhances the learning experience for them. I’m confident that this re-accreditation by the IMechE will continue to attract talented, young mechanical engineers to BMT."