The UK motor industry has launched an initiative to enable young people to see the diverse and exciting career opportunities in motor retail.

The Discover Automotive Retail scheme will see young people get the chance to experience the diverse variety of careers and apprenticeships available in the UK’s £146 billion a year automotive retail sector.

The industry initiative will go live in November and has been co-ordinated by industry body the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) in partnership with the Retail Motor Industry Federation (RMI) and the industry’s Sector Skills Council – the Institute of the Motor Industry (IMI).

It follows a recent Government-supported initiative, See Inside Manufacturing, which included UK-based carmakers.

Critical to the UK economy, automotive retail generates around 5% of total UK turnover and spans a comprehensive range of attractive and challenging careers - from vehicle technician and customer services to sales and marketing - dealing with an enormously broad offering of vehicles and technologies.

“Automotive retail offers a huge variety of exciting and rewarding career choices with some of the world’s biggest and best known brands across sales, servicing and aftersales operations,” said SMMT chief executive, Paul Everitt.

“The franchised dealer network provides continuous training, long-term career development prospects and the opportunity to work with cutting-edge products.”

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