Award Recipients

Rockleigh Ltd is extremely proud and honoured to be a recipient of the King’s Award for Enterprise for Promoting Opportunity. Having achieved the City and Guilds Princess Royal Training award, as well as being one of five to win a special commendation, its team were inspired to apply for the King’s Award for Enterprise. Being a small business, they knew it was going to be a challenge, but their belief in the cause outweighed this.

Rockleigh Ltd is a tree surgery company based in the East Midlands, specialising in remedial tree work. Due to its central location, it can cover a large area of the UK. Founded in 2016, the business started from a small garage. It has expanded over the past seven years with customers ranging from local councils through to stately homes.

The team noticed a gap in the market for new arborists as there were many barriers to entry for young people. There were issues with colleges, and to pay for qualifications through other channels was expensive and unreachable for many 16-21 year olds. Even with the college route, they were still finishing with no real life experience. Hiring experienced people was difficult as often they did not share the same values Rockleigh has.

After the success of training one member of staff from start to finish, the team decided this was the way to go. When conducting interviews, they noticed many of the candidates had difficulties such as dyslexia and ADHD, which resulted in issues at school and finding employment in other spaces. However, as soon as they picked up a chainsaw, none of that mattered.

The new staff are given fully paid training (which Rockleigh receives no funding for) from start to finish, as well as full time paid work. Rockleigh ensures day to day tasks are dyslexia friendly by developing apps to make risk assessments and other required paperwork easier. The new starters are supported not only by established staff, but a management team that encourages them, and a strong office support team, which are patient and understanding of the day to day working of neurodivergent staff.

Winning this award encourages the staff who are currently part of the scheme, but is also a route to entry for future arborists.