Group Quality Apprentice
ALFRED H. KNIGHT INTERNATIONAL LIMITED
Prescot (L34 1PJ)
Closes in 21 days (Friday 14 August 2026)
Posted on 23 July 2026
Contents
Summary
Alfred H Knight has an exciting opportunity for a Group Quality Apprentice to join our team in Liverpool, UK. You will support the continuous improvement and delivery of the AHK Quality approach in Group Laboratory operations focussed on metals and minerals analysis.
- Wage
-
£25,000 a year
- Training course
- Improvement specialist (level 5)
- Hours
-
Monday - Friday, 8:30am - 5:00pm.
37 hours 30 minutes a week
- Start date
-
Monday 28 September 2026
- Duration
-
1 year 2 months
- Positions available
-
2
Work
Most of your apprenticeship is spent working. You’ll learn on the job by getting hands-on experience.
What you'll do at work
- Lead or support non-conformance (NC) investigations and root cause analysis.
- Assist with Corrective and Preventive Action (CAPA) planning, verification, and effectiveness checks.
- Maintain accurate NC and CAPA records and ensure timely progression of actions.
- Investigate Quality Control (QC) failures, trends, and anomalies.
- Conduct data integrity checks and support compliance monitoring.
- Support internal audits and audit readiness activities.
- Prepare evidence and documentation for external assessments.
- Conduct compliance reviews and contribute to corrective actions.
- Support CI projects aligned to UK Quality priorities.
- Assist with process optimisation and risk reduction activities.
Where you'll work
Alfred H Knight Group Headquarters (Uk)
Kings Business Park
Kings Drive
Prescot
L34 1PJ
Training
Apprenticeships include time away from working for specialist training. You’ll study to gain professional knowledge and skills.
Training provider
CAPELLA ASSOCIATES LTD
Training course
Improvement specialist (level 5)
Understanding apprenticeship levels (opens in new tab)
What you'll learn
Course contents
- Leading improvement teams: Holding team members/stakeholders to account for delivering agreed actions within an improvement project and building/maintaining appropriate stakeholder relationships inside and outside the organisation to deliver improvement project objectives
- Strategic Deployment of Continuous Improvement: Contribute to deployment of improvement strategy, participating as an active member of the improvement community
- Communication: Prepare and present concise proposals and plans. Capture and share progress through effective formats and channels. Use and handle questions effectively. Build rapport with others.
- Capability Development: Train, facilitate and critique the application of tools used by improvement practitioners including tool-selection, links between tools, how they are used within a structured method, analsysis of results and presentation of recommendations
- Project planning: Plan and manage finances, multi-stakeholder delivery and benefits realisation
- Change planning: Design reinforcement, engagement and communication strategies
- Principles and Methods for Improvement: Guide others on the selection of appropriate methods (eg. Practical Problem Solving, Define-Measure-Analyse-Improve-Control, 8-Disciplines, Identify-Define-Optimise-Verify) to deliver improvements. Conduct gateway assessments to ensure suitability of projects to progress
- Project selection & scope: Guides others on the selection and scoping of improvement projects and the intial response to product/process performance issues. Identify, scope and prioritise improvement opportunities that map to high-level organisation objectives and key value-streams
- Process mapping & analysis: Guide others on the selection of appropriate process mapping and analysis tools. Critique improved state
- Lean tools: Identify and analyse value-streams using appropriate methods and tools to optimise flow to customer. Develop a plan for Lean deployment within the organisation including effective and relevant performance metrics
- Measurement: Guide others on the planning, analysis and interpretation of data collection & measurement studies including the design of tests to recreate failures & steps to diagnose/reduce short & long-term measurement variation
- Statistics & measures: Confirm data and fit for a range distribution models. Establish predictions. Calculate confidence intervals
- Data analysis-statistical methods: Model random behaviour and make inferences with levels of confidence. Calculate/recommend sample size. Test hypotheses for all data types. Assess input/output correlation. Generate, analyse and interpret simple and multiple predictive relationship models
- Process capability & performance: Identify data stability/distribution issues and apply appropriate strategies to enable robust Capability Analysis. Analyse life data to establish rates and patterns
- Root cause analysis: Make appropriate use of data to assess contribution of critical inputs/root cause(s) to product/process performance using appropriate graphical and statistical tools to draw and coomunicate conclusions
- Experimentation & optimisation: Guide others on the planning, analysis and interpretation of experiments. Plan,conduct, analyse and optimise both full & fractional experiments
- Data analysis – Statistical Process Control: Monitor and asses ongoing process variation and changes through chart-selection, control-limit setting, sample sizing/frequency and control-rules
- Benchmarking: Guide others on benchmarking to support all stages of improvement projects including future-state design
- Failure mode avoidance: Decompose complex systems in order to define main functions. Anaylse system interactions. Cascade knowledge through fault tree analysis. Create and assess design rules, standards & verification methods. Complete robustness studies to select appropriate control strategies and detection methods
- Sustainability & control: Guide others on control and sustainability planning including methods and tools to maintain benefits, extraction of learning, replication, sharing and consolidation of new knowledge into organisational learning
Training schedule
Requirements
Essential qualifications
GCSE in:
- English (grade 5 or above)
- Maths (grade 5 or above)
Desirable qualifications
Level 4 Improvement Practitioner training in:
Lean Six Sigma Green Belt in:
Share if you have other relevant qualifications and industry experience. The apprenticeship can be adjusted to reflect what you already know.
Skills
- Communication skills
- Attention to detail
- Organisation skills
- Number skills
- Logical
- Team working
- Initiative
About this employer
Alfred H Knight is a totally independent, family owned business spanning five generations. A global network of strategically placed offices and laboratories enable global trade by providing independent inspection, analysis and consultancy services to the metals and minerals, solid fuels and agriculture industries. We have honed & carefully crafted our reputation. Delivering knowledge and professionalism in all aspects of weighing, sampling and analysis. We thrive by continuing to re-invest in our facilities, technology and people.
After this apprenticeship
Your earnings can increase over time with an apprenticeship. Find out about potential future pay (opens in new tab).
The qualifications and experience gained on this Apprenticeship will allow you to apply for further roles within this sector.
This is a fantastic opportunity for the right candidate to earn a salary and gain a level 5 qualification.
Ask a question
The contact for this apprenticeship is:
ALFRED H. KNIGHT INTERNATIONAL LIMITED
Holly Baldwin
holly.baldwin@ahkgroup.com
The reference code for this apprenticeship is VAC2000044429.
Apply now
Closes in 21 days (Friday 14 August 2026)
After signing in, you’ll apply for this apprenticeship on the company's website.