Bell Equipment Apprenticeship Programme

Written by Thabo MokoenaSenior Education Editor

Reviewed & verified by Naledi KhumaloSenior Admissions and Bursaries EditorVerified

Bell Equipment, the Richards Bay manufacturer of articulated dump trucks and other earthmoving, forestry and agricultural machines, trains its own artisans through a four-year apprenticeship. Bell’s careers page says the company “annually invites” people with good mechanical aptitude, a hands-on approach and a strong work ethic to join the programme. On 29 September 2026 Bell’s apprenticeship listing showed no open positions, and Bell has not published a date for its next intake.

This page covers the apprenticeship only. Bell runs a separate bursary scheme for university and university of technology students, which has its own page: the Bell Equipment Bursary.

A MERSETA apprenticeship that ends in a trade test

According to Bell’s 2025 Integrated Annual Report, the apprenticeship runs for four years under the Manufacturing, Engineering and Related Services SETA (MERSETA). Bell is an accredited training provider and runs its own training facilities in Richards Bay and Johannesburg. The report describes the aim as “growing our own timber”: Bell trains mechanics and other artisans it needs to build and support its machines, and the same centres also give operator and technical training to Bell staff and customers. The training ends in the trade test that qualifies an apprentice as an artisan.

2025 was the 37th year of Bell’s investment in apprenticeship training. The company reports 244 apprentices in training across all trades during 2025: 204 in South Africa and 40 in Zambia, where Bell Zambia trains earthmoving mechanics in its own workshops before they sit the trade test at Bell’s accredited centre in South Africa. Bell counts its apprentices as employees in its staff figures.

Trades in Bell’s apprentice intake

Bell’s careers page does not list the trades it recruits for in a given year. Its 2024 Integrated Annual Report does publish a breakdown of the apprentices it was training that year, 265 in total, and it shows how heavily the programme leans towards machine mechanics:

• Earthmoving mechanic, by far the largest group, with apprentices in all four years
• Heavy equipment mechanic, the newer occupational qualification that Bell says has replaced the legacy earthmoving mechanic trade
• Boilermaker and millwright
• Auto electrician
• Fitter, fitter and turner, and turner
• Air conditioning and refrigeration mechanic

An intake in a later year may not include every one of these trades. The advert for each intake, when Bell publishes it, is the place to see which trades are on offer and at which site.

What Bell has and has not published about entry requirements

The standing careers page asks for personal qualities rather than results: mechanical aptitude, a practical approach, a strong work ethic and eagerness to learn. It does not list minimum Matric subjects or marks, an age limit, or a required N-level or TVET qualification. It also does not publish what apprentices earn. Anyone planning to apply should wait for the advert, which is where requirements for that intake will appear, and should not rely on figures from unofficial sites.

Where Bell posts apprenticeship vacancies

Bell recruits apprentices through its own online careers system, which has a separate listing for each type of opportunity. The apprenticeship listing read “no positions available, please check back soon” when we checked it on 29 September 2026. When a vacancy is live, applications go through that system, not by email or post. For questions about Bell’s training centres, the company gives training@bellequipment.com on its training page, although that address mainly serves customer and operator training.

Other ways into Bell

The same Bell careers page lists four other routes, each with its own listing:

• Trainee programmes for National Diploma students, especially aspiring industrial engineering technicians, who need in-service training to finish their qualification
• Vacation work for second, third and fourth-year engineering degree students with an average of 65% or more, which Bell uses to select future graduate trainees
• A graduate and internship programme of one or two years for engineering, computer science and IT graduates
• The bursary scheme for tertiary study, which puts particular weight on building skills in the Zululand region

People looking for a trade who cannot wait for Bell’s next intake can compare other funded artisan routes on our artisan bursaries page.

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