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Automation & Digital Design Intern
 
Garboldisham (Norfolk) | £12.71 per hour | 6 weeks | full-time
 
Start Date: July 2026
 
About the Company
 
Mike Ayres Design is a manufacturing-focused design business, creating high-quality 3D designs and visualisations that are translated into real-world products. Working across 3 sites: a design site in Garboldisham, a manufacturing site in East Anglia and a head office in Nottingham, the company combines creative design with practical production.
This internship offers a unique opportunity to work on a live digital transformation project, helping streamline how designs move from concept to manufacturing.
 
The Opportunity
 
We are looking for a technically skilled and curious intern to help automate a key part of our design-to-manufacture workflow. Currently, designs are created in SketchUp, visualised using Enscape, and presented in InDesign. Once approved, the process of converting these designs into manufacturing instructions is manual, time-consuming, and prone to inconsistencies.
 
Your role will be to explore and develop a more efficient, automated or semi-automated solution. The internship will be full time for 6 weeks (37.5 hours a week), totalling 225 hours and is in person at the Garboldisham Design Site.
 
Key Responsibilities

• Map and analyse the current workflow from design through to manufacturing
• Identify opportunities to automate or standardise processes
• Research tools and techniques (e.g. SketchUp Ruby API, plugins, automation tools)
• Develop and test a prototype automation solution or script
• Extract component data from 3D models (dimensions, materials, quantities)
• Generate manufacturing-ready outputs such as parts lists, cut sheets or technical drawings
• Document your process and provide recommendations for future development

What You'll Gain
 
During this internship, you will gain hands-on experience tackling a real digital and engineering challenge while working with industry-standard tools. You'll collaborate closely with both design and manufacturing teams, supported by ongoing mentorship and regular check-ins throughout the project.
We're looking for students or recent graduates with a background in:

• Product Design
• Computer Science / Software Engineering
• Engineering (or related disciplines)

Essential Skills & Attributes

• Strong technical and problem-solving ability
• Interest in automation, scripting or APIs
• Experience (or willingness to learn) tools such as SketchUp, AutoCAD, or similar
• Ability to analyse processes and identify efficiencies
• Strong attention to detail and documentation skills

This is more than a typical internship—you'll be working on a high-impact automation project that could significantly improve efficiency and reduce errors across the business.