Fwiw, I emplore any school leavers with a couple of highers in maths and a science, who aren't complete muppets but don't want to go to university, to do trainee designer programmes with one of the engineering companies. I think you need an HNC in engineering and are taken on at 18/19 on decent money primarily doing CAD. By the time you're 22 the pay is about £37k, which is more than the graduates start on. Piss easy job as well, by the looks of it.