About WEC Group
With over 1100 staff and 760,000 sq. ft. of manufacturing floorspace spread across 10 sites Lancashire, Merseyside, Yorkshire, and the West Midlands, WEC Group is the largest fabrication & engineering company in the UK.
History
WEC Group's origin were modest, starting out as a 2 man-operation in Darwen, Lancashire in 1979. Through skills, hard work, engineering excellence, and constant re-investment in the latest technology, we have grown to one of the largest contract manufacturing companies in Europe over the past 45+ years.
Our Values
Community is at the forefront of everything we do, which is why we have committed to bridging the local engineering skills gap by educating the next generation of engineers at our state-of-the-art in house Apprentice Training Academies.
Why WEC?
We offer a full in-house manufacturing service from concept, through to design, fabrication & installation. Our specialist team of experts are on hand to ensure the finished product is exactly right.
Steve Hartley - Founder & Managing Director of WEC Group
Steve Hartley is the founder and Managing Director of WEC Group. He co-founded the business in 1979 after being made redundant, launching from a 1,000 sq ft shed in Darwen, Lancashire, and building it into a multi-site engineering group employing more than 1,050 people across the UK.
A former apprentice, Steve has been a strong advocate for skills development throughout his career, including establishing WEC Group’s Engineering Academy in 2006 to deliver high-quality apprenticeship training in welding, fabrication, CNC machining, mechanical engineering and more.
Under his leadership, WEC Group has also supported a wide range of community and heritage projects, with apprentices contributing to local memorials, restoration work and public builds -reflecting his long-term commitment to engineering excellence and developing the next generation of skilled UK engineers.
Developing the Next Generation of World Class Engineers
Our Divisions
WEC Fabrication comprises of two divisions, Welding Engineering and m-tec. With over 45 years’ experience, Welding Engineering offers design and fabrication services for metal / alloy products including Stainless Steel Fabrication. m-tec is a specialist architectural metalwork division, and offers specialist design & fabrication services for stainless steel artwork and public regeneration projects.
WECJet provides waterjet cutting services to the UK’s highest standards. Using the latest waterjet cutting technology, WECJet can waterjet cut any material up to 200mm thick, providing WEC Group with new cutting capabilities for cutting materials which are unable to be laser cut, and for thicknesses which are incompatible with laser cutting machines.
WEC Plasma provides high quality plasma cutting services for stainless steel, mild/carbon steels and aluminium components of up to 10m x 2.5m x 50mm. Utilising the very latest Multi Bevel High Definition plasma cutting technology, WEC Plasma is a great addition to the Group’s already extensive range of subcontract engineering services.
WEC Machining Ltd offers a wide range of subcontract multi-axis CNC machining and precision engineering services from our purpose built 33,000 sq. ft. facility. Our highly skilled division based in Blackburn, has the machining capacity of up to 8000mm x 1500mm x 2000mm, as well as being accredited to Aerospace AS 9100 REV C for CC and conventional machining, turning and milling. We have also been involved in the manufacture of quality workshop, industrial and educational machinery for over 41 years with Clarendon by WEC.
WEC Large Machining provides post fabrication machining operations to a broad range of industries including niche sectors that require specialist, high accuracy and quality parts such as Nuclear, Aerospace, Oil & Gas and Marine. Based in Darwen, Lancashire, we offer impressive large machining facilities and are able to carry out entire projects in-house, taking them right through from the initial consultation to the machining and inspection of the completed product.
WEC Rail focuses solely on the design and fabrication of rail Structures such as Signal Gantries, OLE Main Steel & Small Part Steel, and trackside camera mounting structures. We also offer Rolling Stock Metalwork services including EN 15085 accredited Fabrication of Rail components and sub assemblies (Class 1-4). Over the past few years, WEC Rail has experienced a huge increase in demand for its specialist services and now lays claim to many of the rail structures across England and Wales.
WEC Powder Coating delivers powder coating services nationwide utilising a state-of-the-art facility in-house. The Gema powder coating system boasts two automatic reciprocators with a 90% powder recovery system and a 5 stage in-line pre-treatment plant.