RENISHAW has been ranked in the top three best UK companies for engineering and manufacturing graduates to work for at an awards ceremony held recently in London.

Ranking higher than many household names in both the private and public sector, the Wotton-under-Edge based technological firm was also named in the overall top 50 companies for graduates in the annual list produced by The JobCrowd.

The listings are the only results voted for by graduates themselves, and human resources manager Peter Bowler said he was “very pleased” by the result.

“Renishaw takes its graduate recruitment programme very seriously and we are delighted that we have received this recommendation in this survey of the top 100 companies for graduates to work for.”

This is the first year Renishaw has entered the rankings, making the company’s immediate appearance in the top 50 even more impressive.

The company supplies products used for applications as diverse as jet engine and wind turbine manufacture, through to dentistry and brain surgery.

It employs 3,400 people globally, some 2,200 of which are located at its 15 sites in the UK, plus over 1,200 staff located in the 32 countries where it has wholly owned subsidiary operations.

Last year it recorded sales of £347 million of which 94 per cent were due to exports.

George Gibbons, a sales development executive who recently completed the Renishaw graduate scheme, said there were a number of factors which made the scheme stand out.

“The Renishaw graduate scheme not only offers you challenging and enjoyable projects, but also provides a solid structure of support when you need advice or support,” he said.

“Graduates are tasked with ‘real life’ projects and are given a lot of freedom to go about completing them.”

A company record of 68 graduates are being recruited in 2014, with over 100 summer, industrial and pre-university placements also being taken on throughout the group.

The JobCrowd correlates anonymous reviews of jobs from graduates in order to create the annual list, and has been described as “Trip Advisor for jobs”.

The awards evening, held on June 16, was hosted by comedian Alex Horne at the Intercontinental Hotel in London in front of over 200 representatives from the 100 companies ranked.