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Thales Australia has moved quickly to enhance the credentials of its significant engineering workforce following legislative changes in Victoria and New South Wales.

Under a strategic partnership with Engineers Australia, Thales has created a professional accreditation scheme to validate the credentials of its extensive engineering workforce, expecting to have approximately 250 engineers chartered under the scheme by the end of 2021.

For over 30 years, Thales Australia has invested in developing world-leading Australian engineering skills, with a focus on building sovereign Australian Defence industry capability. With nearly 1000 technical and engineering employees across Australia, Thales delivers critical sovereign capability to the Australian Defence Force to protect Australian soldiers on operation including, the Bushmaster and Hawkei Light Protected Mobility Vehicles.

Thales Australia is also present in commercial sectors ranging from air traffic management and ground transport systems to security systems and services.

Thales Australia’s Chief Technical Officer, Dr John Best, said:

“The partnership with Engineers Australia would support compliance with State based legislation that requires professional engineers to be registered.

“This partnership is about more than achieving compliance - it is about actively participating in the Australian engineering community to maintain and advance engineering practice.

“As technology development cycles become shorter, it is critical that organisations, like Thales, that deliver mission critical solutions to both defence and civil customers, continuously strive to maintain state of the art knowledge. The continuous professional development obligations that come with recognition through Engineers Australia drive our individual staff, and us as a company, to continuously improve.

“Ensuring that our engineering workforce is professionally credentialled is a way in which we can communicate to our clients, to industry and to the wider community that we’re committed to delivering highly engineered solutions that are safe, secure and will meet the performance needs of the end users.”

Engineers Australia CEO, Dr Bronwyn Evans AM, said:

“We are delighted to extend our partnership with Thales.”

“Credentials, like Chartered, are important for the role they play in maintaining public trust in the engineering profession. It’s also essential to ensure engineers are prepared to address the increasingly complex challenges faced by Australia and the world.

“At a time when more states are moving to mandate registration of engineers, achieving Chartered status demonstrates an extra level of commitment to achieving best practice.”

About Thales in Australia

Thales Australia is a trusted partner of the Australian Defence Force and is also present in commercial sectors ranging from air traffic management and ground transport systems to security systems and services. Thales Australia employs around 3,800 people directly and supports over 1,700 job along its Australian supply chain. In 2019 Thales Australia spent $522 million with 1,362 Australia suppliers, of which 70% are SMEs.

Thales Australia has a history of patient investment to build advanced in-country capability across manufacturing, critical systems and services. Close collaborative relationships with local customers, Australian SME suppliers and research institutions combined with technology transfer from our global business enables Thales to tailor high quality solutions for Australian and export markets, generating revenue of $1.6 billion in exports over the past 10 years.