A family-owned structural steel fabricator based in regional NSW has been named winner of the Industry Collaboration Award at the 2026 NSW Training Awards for a workforce training partnership that began as a solution to a recruitment crisis and has since become central to how the company operates.
Apollo Fabrication Group, together with registered training organisation Educational Living, took out the award for the Steel Fabrication Training Opportunities Program, an onsite training pathway delivered at Apollo’s Young facility that has helped the regional employer build its own skilled tradespeople rather than compete for an increasingly scarce regional labour pool.
The win means Apollo and Educational Living will now represent NSW at the Australian Training Awards in November 2026.
“As the business grows, so does the individual. Five years ago, this program was a response to a problem we simply couldn’t ignore. We couldn’t find the skilled tradespeople we needed in a constrained regional labour market. Today, training isn’t something that happens alongside our business. It is our business,” said Caleb Jackson, Managing Director, Apollo Fabrication Group (pictured left).
Apollo was founded in Young in 2000 by Terry Jackson and is now led by his sons, Caleb and Nathan Jackson. The company has grown into one of Australia’s leading providers of complex architectural and structural steel, with work including the Australian War Memorial’s ANZAC Hall, Barangaroo’s Pier Pavilion, and the iconic Sirius Building in Sydney Harbour.
Emerging from the pandemic, Apollo faced a challenge familiar to many regional manufacturers: the specialised tradespeople it needed to deliver complex architectural steelwork were increasingly hard to find and retain. Rather than compete for a shrinking pool of talent, Apollo partnered with Educational Living in 2021 to co-design a structured training pathway — from Introduction to Fabrication through to a Diploma of Engineering — delivered onsite and built around live production work.
“We believe that integrating training into a client’s culture and strategic growth provides better outcomes and career paths for their personnel, as well as capability and stability for our clients in Australia’s manufacturing sector. Although our vision has often been considered idealistic, this collaboration is proof of what can be achieved when training becomes an integral part of the business operations of a manufacturing company,” stated Edward Stone, CEO, Educational Living.
By embedding training locally, the program also removes the need for apprentices and trainees to travel to a regional city or metropolitan training centre, a significant factor for a workforce drawn largely from Young and the surrounding Hilltops, Cowra, Cootamundra, Gundagai and Weddin local government areas.
Apollo and Educational Living will now prepare to represent NSW at the Australian Training Awards, to be held in November 2026.
IMAGE: Caleb Jackson Apollo (left) & Edward Stone Educational Living (right)