Aerospace apprenticeships 2027: the application calendar

Aerospace has one drawback that few candidates see coming: it hires far too early. By the time a student starts looking for an apprenticeship in May for a September start, the Airbus, Safran and Thales campaigns have already been closed for weeks on the most sought-after positions. Conversely, anyone who submits an application in December finds a still-broad pool of openings, with recruiters who have all the time they need to read through applications. For the 2027 intake, that gap amounts to four to six months.

In short: the French aerospace and space sector opens its apprenticeship campaigns for the September 2027 intake in two waves. First wave, November 2026 to February 2027: the major prime contractors and equipment makers — Airbus, Airbus Helicopters, Safran (Aircraft Engines, Landing Systems, Nacelles, Electronics & Defense), Thales, Dassault Aviation, ArianeGroup, Liebherr Aerospace, Latécoère, Daher, Figeac Aéro — publish their openings on their careers sites. Second wave, March to June 2027: airlines and maintenance providers (Air France, Air France Industries KLM E&M, Transavia, Hop!, Sabena technics, Vallair), plus mid-sized companies and subcontractors in Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Occitanie and Île-de-France. On the qualifications side, the range runs from the CAP Aéronautique all the way to an engineering degree completed through apprenticeship (ISAE-SUPAERO, ENSMA, ESTACA, ITII), taking in the bac pro Aéronautique, the BTS Aéronautique, the BTS CRSA, the BUT GMP and master's degrees in fluid mechanics.

Why the sector hires apprentices in such large numbers

Three well-documented structural factors explain the volume of openings.

Production rates are climbing faster than headcount. GIFAS (the French aerospace industries association) publishes an annual employment review for the sector: after the air pocket of 2020-2021, aircraft manufacturers' order books underpin a decade of production, and the industry regularly reports several tens of thousands of hires a year, a significant share of them on apprenticeship contracts. The pressure points are shop-floor trades — fitter-assembler, aerospace sheet metal worker, machinist, harness technician, test technician — and systems engineering roles.

The age pyramid. Many of the skilled workers and technicians trained in the 1980s and 1990s are retiring. That know-how transfers poorly through classroom training alone: it takes hands-on practice, a workshop and a mentor. Apprenticeship is the natural tool, and the large groups have built this into their own training centres (the Safran campus, the production schools partnered with Airbus in Toulouse and Saint-Nazaire).

Decarbonisation and New Space. Hydrogen aircraft programmes, sustainable aviation fuels and electric propulsion, along with the rise of satellite constellations and reusable launchers, are creating demand for skills that didn't exist ten years ago: electrochemistry, embedded systems, telemetry data processing, industrial cybersecurity. Many of these roles are entrusted to apprentices at master's level in design offices.

Worth noting: aerospace and space are sectors where nationality and security clearance can determine access to certain positions (defence programmes, classified sites). Job ads state this explicitly. It is not the case for the majority of civil roles.

Wave 1: manufacturers and equipment makers (November 2026 → February 2027)

This is the decisive window. The big groups think in terms of an annual campaign: they open several hundred positions at once, publish them in the autumn, and close them one by one as teams find their candidate.

Aircraft manufacturers and major systems suppliers

For these campaigns, everything goes through the group's careers site, using an "apprenticeship" or "work-study" filter plus a study-level filter. Aggregator platforms pick up these postings with a lag of several days: better to go straight to the source and set up an alert. If you want to compare how these large accounts operate with the approach of the sector's smaller firms, our comparison of apprenticeships in a large company versus an SME sets out what you gain and lose on each side.

Mid-sized firms and subcontractors, often overlooked

Tier 1 and tier 2 subcontractors are hiring too, with shorter processes and far less competition: Latécoère (Toulouse, Montredon), Figeac Aéro (Figeac, Mérignac), Mecachrome (Vibraye, Aubigny), Lauak (Hasparren), Aubert & Duval (Pamiers, Les Ancizes), Precia, Sogeclair, Potez Aéronautique (Aire-sur-l'Adour), Nexteam Group. An application sent in January to five mid-sized firms in your region statistically stands a better chance than one lost among the 40,000 an aircraft manufacturer receives every year. The method is the one described in our guide to the speculative apprenticeship application, applied to a list of genuinely identified companies — the directories of regional clusters (Aerospace Valley in Occitanie and Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Normandie AeroEspace, Aéro Hauts-de-France) provide those lists free of charge.

Wave 2: airlines and maintenance (March → June 2027)

Airlines follow a different calendar, aligned with their flight programme. For 2026, Air France opened a campaign of more than 800 apprenticeship positions, spread across ground operations, maintenance, digital, finance and support functions; the 2027 campaign should follow a comparable seasonal pattern, opening in the spring with additional hiring running through to July.

The employers to watch in this wave:

• Air France and Air France Industries KLM Engineering & Maintenance (Roissy, Orly, Villeneuve-le-Roi, Toulouse): aircraft mechanics, parts logistics, planning, data.
• Transavia France and Hop!: operations, ground handling, scheduling.
• Sabena technics (Bordeaux-Mérignac, Dinard, Nîmes) and Vallair (Montpellier): heavy maintenance, cargo conversion, aircraft painting.
• Groupe ADP and regional airport operators (Toulouse-Blagnac, Nice, Lyon, Marseille): security, operations, facilities maintenance.
• DGAC and ENAC: public-sector air navigation jobs also take on apprentices, via the Place de l'emploi public — a route explained in our guide to apprenticeships in the public sector.

Which qualifications to aim for, from CAP to engineering degree

The sector is unusual in offering complete apprenticeship pathways, from level 3 to level 7.

CAP and vocational baccalaureate level

• CAP Aéronautique (structures, systems or avionics options): fitter-assembler, harness technician, assembler.
• Bac pro Aéronautique (same options) and bac pro Technicien en chaudronnerie industrielle: much sought after by structures workshops.
• Bac pro Maintenance des véhicules redirected towards aircraft maintenance, and the mention complémentaire Aéronautique.
• Professional certificates from the Ministry of Labour: aircraft structures fitter-assembler, aircraft painter, machining technician.

For shop-floor trades, what companies look for above all is rigour and clean workmanship. Your own good digital vernier caliper and a workshop notebook quickly make a difference in interviews: they show you have grasped that dimensional accuracy and traceability are the raw material of the job.

Two- and three-year higher education level

• BTS Aéronautique: the pivotal qualification for maintenance and testing.
• BTS CRSA (design and build of automated systems), BTS CPRP, BTS CIM, BTS Électrotechnique, BTS Systèmes numériques.
• BUT GMP (mechanical engineering and production), BUT GEII, BUT MP (physical measurements), BUT QLIO.
• Professional bachelor's degrees in aerospace, aircraft maintenance, metrology, high-speed machining.
• Bachelor's programmes at engineering schools (ESTACA, IPSA, ELISA Aerospace) open to apprenticeship in the third year.

Master's level

• Engineering degrees through apprenticeship: ITII Midi-Pyrénées, ITII Pays de la Loire, ENSMA (Poitiers), ESTACA (Laval, Saint-Quentin, Bordeaux), ECAM, CESI, Arts et Métiers (FITE pathway), INSA. ISAE-SUPAERO and Centrale offer professionalisation contracts on certain specialised master's programmes.
• Master's degrees in fluid mechanics and aerodynamics, materials and structures, embedded systems, industrial supply chain management.
• CGE-accredited specialised master's programmes in aerospace and space, often on a professionalisation contract.

For an engineering profile, the technical interview almost always centres on a concrete project. Those who revise with an applied aerodynamics textbook and can explain a lift curve at the whiteboard do better than those who recite their CV.

The month-by-month calendar to follow

If the summer window arrives and you still haven't signed anything, two safety nets exist: last-minute openings and the three-month window that lets you start your course without a contract and keep looking.

Three details that tip an application one way or the other

The technical file. Recruiters in this sector read CVs with an engineer's eye: they look for the machines you have used, the software you have mastered (CATIA V5 or 3DEXPERIENCE, SolidWorks, ANSYS, MATLAB, Simulink, LabVIEW), the standards you have worked with (EN 9100, EASA Part 145, Part 21), and a project described in three useful lines. A generic CV goes down badly. Our apprenticeship CV template provides the structure; it's up to you to inject the exact technical vocabulary of the job ad.

English. All the sector's technical documentation is in English, and project teams are multicultural. Many master's-level postings require a TOEIC score or equivalent. Spending three months revising with a TOEIC preparation book before the campaign is a worthwhile investment, especially if your target qualification is only awarded above a minimum score.

Mobility. The sector is geographically very concentrated: Occitanie (Toulouse, Figeac, Tarbes, Pamiers), Nouvelle-Aquitaine (Bordeaux-Mérignac, Bordes, Hasparren), Pays de la Loire (Saint-Nazaire, Nantes), Île-de-France (Villaroche, Vélizy, Les Mureaux), Provence (Marignane), Normandy (Vernon), Grand Est (Molsheim). Saying up front that you are willing to relocate multiplies your chances — provided you have planned your accommodation. Financial support is available and set out in our article on housing during an apprenticeship.

Getting ready for the workshop or the design office

The first few weeks on an industrial site come as a surprise: badges, restricted-access zones, safety instructions, mandatory protective equipment. The employer supplies the regulatory PPE, but many apprentices add their own kit: a pair of S3 safety shoes in the right size beats an approximate pair borrowed from the stores, and on assembly lines a good high-attenuation ear defender quickly proves indispensable. In the design office the challenge is different: dense note-taking in meetings, documentation in English, drawings to annotate. A squared-paper notebook remains the most widely used tool on project floors.

For the rest, the rules are those of any apprenticeship contract: information and prevention medical visit within two months, an appointed mentor, follow-up by the training centre. Because aerospace has a highly formalised safety culture, occupational health matters are taken seriously there — our article on workplace accidents during an apprenticeship sets out the right reflexes if an incident occurs.

Where to look for openings

• The careers sites of the groups listed above (the "students and graduates" section).
• Cluster directories: Aerospace Valley, Normandie AeroEspace, Aéro Hauts-de-France, Aerospace Cluster in Provence.
• GIFAS and its careers promotion scheme, which lists member companies by region.
• La Place de l'emploi public for DGAC, ONERA, CNES and public-sector space organisations.
• Industrial training centres: AFPI, Pôle formation UIMM, campus Safran, Aérocampus Aquitaine (Latresne), Airemploi.
• Our own job search engine on apprenticeship search and the employer pages on companies that are hiring.

Aerospace rewards methodical candidates. The sector is technically demanding, but it is transparent: it publishes its campaigns, announces its needs role by role and genuinely invests in training its apprentices. The only real trap is the calendar. Applying in November for September 2027 seems absurd when you are 19; yet that is exactly what the people who sign contracts do.