A national award for a Bournemouth apprentice highlights the precision and skill behind modern decorative painting, while raising broader questions about how trades are valued and promoted.
All images Romilly Oliver
Romilly Oliver was supposed to become a dentist. ‘I did my A levels planning to go into dentistry,’ she says. ‘I loved science, and that was the route I thought I was going to take.’
Instead, the 22-year-old from Bournemouth has just been named Apprentice of the Year by the Painting and Decorating Association after completing a six-hour practical competition requiring competitors to recreate an intricate decorative design to millimetre accuracy. I It’s one of the most demanding competitions in the trade.
‘It was my third and final time competing,’ she says. ‘I’d have been gutted if I’d finished my apprenticeship without winning it!’
The competition is far removed from the everyday image most have of painters and decorators. Competitors are given a design plan and required to recreate it precisely – measured to the millimetre, cut in freehand, and finished using a range of traditional decorative techniques.
‘You get given the plan and have six hours to recreate it,’ Romilly says. ‘Everything’s set out exactly – the measurements, the angles, the techniques you have to use. You’ve got to pencil it all on, get it all accurate, and then paint it exactly to that specification.
‘They mark everything – how accurate your measurements are, your angles, your cutting in. You’re making stencils by hand, doing effects like rag rolling … it’s all about how precise you can be.’
Romilly came top in her regional heat before going on to achieve the highest score again at the UK Grand Final in Doncaster.
She never intended to follow in dad Scott’s footsteps. ‘Growing up, it was always part of my life,’ she says. ‘My dad taught painting and decorating at a college, so I’d go along after school and in the holidays and just mess around with what the students were doing.
‘It was always a bit of a joke in the family – if you didn’t do well in school, you’d ‘get sent to work with Dad’ as if it was a punishment,’ she says. ‘Then I ended up choosing to do exactly that.’
After finishing A Levels, Romilly took a year out without a clear plan. ‘Mum and dad run the family business, Scott Oliver Decorating, and said I should just come along and try it. I thought I might as well.’
What followed was less a gradual drift than a complete change of direction. ‘It’s just such a calm, relaxing, happy job to do,’ she says. ‘I was spending every day working with my dad, learning these skills … I realised I just couldn’t see myself doing anything else.
‘The first six months of the apprenticeship were really hard though. I thought “I’m never going to get the hang of this”, but then something clicked.’
That creative instinct, she now realises, had always been there. ‘I loved the academic side of school, but I’d always been creative too – drawing, making things. I just didn’t realise that was something you could build a career around.’
It’s a realisation she wishes more young people were encouraged to have earlier. ‘I went to a grammar school, and the only option that was offered was university,’ she says. ‘Trades weren’t something you were told to consider.’
That experience is something she now challenges directly. ‘I don’t think it should be about encouraging girls or boys specifically,’ she says. ‘It’s about encouraging anyone who’s creative, who likes making things, or working with their hands, to give it a go.’
Her own apprenticeship has been unusual: working largely one-to-one with her father, much of her training has come directly from the job: ‘I didn’t really get the chance to train in a workshop,’ she says. ‘It was just me and my dad, learning as we went.’
A woman’s touch
That closeness has shaped both her skill and her ambition. ‘I don’t want a massive business,’ she says. ‘I want to create really nice things myself – more bespoke work, murals, detailed finishes. Things where you can really use your creativity.’
It’s a direction that sits well with the demands of the competition she has just won – one which rewards precision, patience and an eye for detail. It has also opened doors beyond the job itself.
Romilly has already demonstrated her work at the NEC in Birmingham, showcasing the skills involved in the competition to a wider audience within the industry.
‘That was amazing,’ she says. ‘You get to meet manufacturers, suppliers, other people in the trade – it gives you a real sense of what’s out there.’
It also brought her into contact with the wider reality of the industry – one that is still, in places, catching up. ‘I don’t really experience much of it, day to day working with my dad,’ she says. ‘Doesn’t matter who you are, if you’re good at something, you’re good at it. That’s how I’ve always been brought up.
‘But when you go to competitions and events, you do notice it. You still hear comments like, “oh, you’ve got a woman’s touch”, or “it’s easier for you because you’re a woman”,’ she says. ‘That’s still very much there. Painting and decorating is probably one of the more typical trades where you do see women,’ she says. ‘But there’s still a long way to go, and it’s probably worse in other trades.’
For Romilly, though, the focus remains on the work itself. Winning Apprentice of the Year has given her a platform – but also a sense of what comes next.
‘I want to keep building on it,’ she says. ‘More qualifications, more skills, maybe going into interior design alongside it.’ But the core of it will stay the same. ‘I just want to create things,’ she says.
See Romilly and her dad at work on Instagram
@scottoliverdecorating
