More than 6,000 installers, commissioning technicians and service engineers completed Daikin’s face-to-face training courses in 2024.
The company confirmed that 6,132 professionals passed through its five national training centres – Woking, Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow – during 2024, as it steps up its efforts to arm the heating and cooling trade with the skills that will be needed to usher in the UK’s net zero future.
Daikin delivered numerous trainings at its centres, including sessions covering first-fit best practice on the company’s Altherma heat pumps, as well as in-depth diagnostics and fault-finding on direct-expansion kit.
Building capacity across the country
To extend its reach, Daikin added 11 Sustainable Home Centre training suites during the year and supplied products to 46 independent colleges and academies, allowing them to run their own courses. The investment helped the programme maintain a net promoter score above 90%.
The firm also channelled more than £40,000 of Government Heat Pump Training Grant money into its schedule, easing the cost of upskilling for engineers keen to branch into low-carbon technologies. That enabled the company to offer each one of its training courses for free, with a complimentary lunch also thrown in.
Daniel Jackson, Training Manager at Daikin, commented, “We recognise that driving towards these goals starts with training and that is why training is always at the foundation of everything we do. Therefore, it is extremely exciting to highlight our recent successes which include training over 6000 people across our five national training centres during 2024.
“Despite this success we still have to innovate to support the growing needs of UK installers, commissioning and service engineers and have some exciting new plans for 2025, which include opening more training centres, delivering more Heat Pump Training Grant funded courses on behalf of the UK Government and expanding our portfolio of free training.
“Not only are we building upon the successes of our training centres but in 2025 we will further expand our existing 40+ Sustainable Home Training Centres so that training is on the doorsteps to most engineers.”
Looking ahead to 2025
With heat pump deployment forecast to accelerate as the UK targets 600,000 installations a year by 2028, with many of those coming from new build homes, which are required to ditch the gas boiler under the Future Homes Standard that came into force this year, it’s important to train engineers to be able to deliver those new heat pumps.
Daikin says it will keep scaling its training offer. An additional building has already been secured to boost capacity in Manchester, while the network of more than 40 Sustainable Home Training Centres is set for a further roll-out.
That comes at a pivotal time, as skills shortages remain one of the biggest threats to the decarbonisation of heat. In fact, Andrew Eldred, Chief Operating Officer at the Electrical Contractors’ Association, recently warned that a shortage of skilled engineers could derail the UK’s hopes of achieving net zero.
That’s why it’s vitally important for the whole industry to get involved with training the next generation, whether it’s Daikin, AVK, or one of the many dedicated training companies within the industry.
