STEM Workshops in Walsall

Walsall was known as the town of a hundred trades, built around leather and saddlery: generations of tanners and harness makers worked alongside loriners, the metalworkers who made bits, stirrups and buckles. Around 1900 the leather trade employed some 10,000 people, and the Walsall Leather Museum, which opened in 1988 in a renovated Victorian factory, has kept those skills alive (the museum is currently closed while it relocates to a new site). Neighbouring Willenhall was the centre of England's lock-making industry, remembered at the Locksmith's House, a lock-maker's home and workshop preserved by the Black Country Living Museum. In Darlaston, Rubery Owen, founded in 1884, engineered everything from fasteners to aircraft parts and owned BRM when it won the 1962 Formula One world championship.

Sister Dora, born Dorothy Pattison, arrived in Walsall in 1865 and cared for the town through epidemics, colliery disasters and the everyday injuries of industrial life; her statue, unveiled in 1886, is widely regarded as Britain's first full-size public statue of a non-royal woman. Sir James Underwood, born in Walsall in 1942, became a leading pathologist and served as President of the Royal College of Pathologists from 2002 to 2005. Martin Fowler, born in Walsall in 1963 and educated at Queen Mary's Grammar School, is among the world's most influential software engineers, the author of Refactoring and Chief Scientist at Thoughtworks.

HomeServe, founded in Walsall in 1993 as a joint venture with South Staffordshire Water, grew into a FTSE 100 home repairs group, was bought for around £4.1 billion in a deal completed in 2023, and still runs from its Cable Drive head office. The RAC runs one of its main operational headquarters at Bescot, with call centre, support and technical roles. In Darlaston, ZF Lemförder manufactures chassis components for major carmakers. Walsall College, rated Good by Ofsted in January 2025, trains engineering apprentices, while the University of Wolverhampton's Walsall campus houses sport science laboratories.

A Walsall pupil can go a long way without leaving the borough. Walsall College offers engineering apprenticeships and technical courses from its town-centre Wisemore campus and its Green Lane campus, home to a purpose-built Engineering Manufacturing Workshop covering milling, turning, electrical engineering and CAD. The University of Wolverhampton's Walsall campus runs sport and exercise science degrees with human performance laboratories on site. Employers add the work-based routes: ZF Lemförder builds chassis components in Darlaston, the RAC's Bescot base spans technical, support and customer operations, and Walsall Manor Hospital anchors NHS healthcare careers. Wolverhampton and Birmingham universities sit within easy commuting distance for everything else.