Tees Components celebrates all-time record book with £1.7m investment and job creation

Celebrations are underway this week at Tees Components in East Cleveland, as the team secured several large contracts and hit an all-time record order book of £3m.

It’s an historic high for the family business, which will reach its 60th year of operation next year. The last two years saw challenges for the facility, specialising in manufacturing prototypes and new product development for clients, as projects were put on hold.

However, showing long-term confidence in its services, colleagues and clients, the company made no redundancies and invested in a new plant and a significant new extension to its facilities.

The contracts include £1.75m in new orders in the second quarter alone, and almost 50 per cent of its work will be exported. The company was this year nominated to be a Department for International Trade (DIT) Northern Powerhouse (NPH) Export Champion, in recognition of its consistent direct export sales and promotion of British engineering excellence overseas.

Already well-established in the United States, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and throughout Europe, the company has recently expanded into Iceland as a new market.

Managing director Sharon Lane said, “I’m delighted to see the hard work pay off for our team, and to see our clients show this confidence in us. More than anything we are excited to embark on these contracts – they are a brilliant blend of projects.

“We have fascinating new products which we’re excited about, we have critical British infrastructure projects, and also we’re involved in essential climate research work. We are so fortunate to be able to play our part, what we do genuinely matters, and that is why we enjoy what we do”.

The new contracts have resulted in the creation of eight jobs, from machine shop engineers to admin roles, at apprentice and trainee level through to experienced and qualified people, and the recruitment campaign will be launched in the coming weeks.

The orders have also given confidence for further investment, having already made a £750k outlay in new machinery, office space, welfare facilities and landscaped outdoor space to accommodate growth, the board has now committed to a further £1.7m in machine tool upgrades and new plant and equipment, leading to further jobs being created in 2023.

The bespoke on-site training facility, commissioned in 2019, has already been put to good use, with two new apprentices joining the existing cohort last month. This maintains the company’s commitment of an apprenticeship proportion of 10 per cent of its staff.