The Bench After Graduation: Cooksongold and FORGE Back the Next Generation

A jewellery course may end with a graduate collection. The more difficult question begins the following morning: where do you make the next one?

For emerging jewellers, leaving education can also mean losing access to the benches, machinery, technicians, materials and creative community that made their work possible.

Talent does not disappear at graduation. Infrastructure often does.

A new partnership between Cooksongold and FORGE is attempting to close that gap by giving one early-career jeweller the practical foundations needed to turn an emerging practice into an independent professional one.

The Cooksongold x FORGE Graduate Residency 2027-2028 will provide a fully sponsored, part-time bench membership at FORGE in Hatton Garden for 12 months, supported by tools, sterling silver, professional photography and access to industry knowledge.

This is not simply a prize for work already completed. It is an investment in what a jeweller might make next.

The missing space between education and practice

The jewellery industry often talks about attracting new talent. Less attention is paid to what happens once that talent arrives.

Education provides more than tuition. It offers shared workshops, specialist equipment, peer discussion, technical support and the freedom to test ideas without every experiment needing to generate an immediate financial return.

When that environment suddenly disappears, even a highly skilled graduate can find it difficult to continue developing their work.

Amanda Mansell, founder and director of FORGE, identifies this as one of the industry’s most pressing transition points.

“One of the biggest challenges for jewellery graduates is what happens after education. They leave with skills, ideas and ambition, but often lose access to the workshops, equipment and support networks that have been so important to their development.”

Amanda Mansell - Forge

Amanda Mansell, award-winning jewellery designer and founder and director of FORGE in Hatton Garden

That challenge is both creative and financial. Establishing an independent bench requires more than enthusiasm. Tools, metal, equipment, rent, insurance, photography and professional visibility all carry a cost, often before a new maker has developed a reliable customer base.

The residency is valuable because it does not address only one part of that equation.

What the resident will receive

The successful applicant will receive a sponsored part-time membership at FORGE, providing access to its professional jewellery workshop in Hatton Garden for one day each week.

Cooksongold will fund the 12-month bench membership, valued at £1,000 plus VAT, and provide a £125 Bench Essentials toolkit alongside 100 grams of sterling silver, valued at £200.

The finished collection will also receive professional photography arranged by Cooksongold, helping the resident transform a body of work into something that can be presented to press, buyers, galleries and future clients.

Specialist knowledge and advice will be available where appropriate, while the resident will become part of the wider FORGE community.

That includes opportunities to attend private views, industry talks, LINK-UP networking evenings and the annual Meet the Experts event.

The package recognises that a professional jewellery practice requires several things to develop at once. The maker needs somewhere to work, something to work with, people to learn from and a way to present the finished result.

FORGE members working at their benches in the creative hub’s fully equipped shared jewellery workshop in Hatton Garden

More than tools and metal

Cooksongold has spent more than a century supplying the precious metals, tools and equipment used by jewellers. This partnership extends that relationship beyond the transaction.

Sian Brown, Brand and Commercial Partnership Manager at Cooksongold, says:

“Creativity needs more than a good idea. It needs tools, materials, space to experiment and the opportunity to turn ideas into something real.”

Sian Brown, Brand and Commercial Partnership Manager at Cooksongold

Sian Brown, Brand and Commercial Partnership Manager at Cooksongold, outside the company’s Hatton Garden store

That sentence gets to the heart of the residency.

A saw frame or sheet of silver has potential, but its value is realised only when a maker has the time, confidence and physical space to use it. By supporting the environment around the material, Cooksongold is helping to create the conditions in which a new collection can emerge.

For a business that may accompany a jeweller from their first student toolkit through to an established professional workshop, the residency feels like a natural extension of that relationship.

It also connects two of Britain’s most important jewellery districts. Cooksongold was founded in Birmingham and continues to operate from the city’s Jewellery Quarter, while FORGE provides the resident with a working base in London’s historic Hatton Garden.

The partnership creates a bridge between supply, making, education and professional practice.

Freedom before formula

The resident will not be expected to follow a fixed creative programme.

Instead, they will be encouraged to develop their own direction, explore techniques and processes, and work towards either a new collection or a significant body of work.

That freedom matters. The most useful support for an emerging designer is not always instruction. Sometimes it is the removal of obstacles.

Providing regular access to a professional workshop gives the resident permission to experiment without dictating what the final work should become.

The process will be documented throughout the year, following the collection from its earliest ideas and technical trials through to the finished pieces.

This gives the initiative a value beyond its single recipient. Sharing the development honestly can help other emerging makers understand how a collection evolves, including the decisions, revisions and occasional failures that are normally hidden behind polished final photography.

Cooksongold Bench Essentials tools ready for use at a jeweller’s bench

A collection with a public destination

The residency will begin on 18 January 2027.

The resulting collection will be exhibited at FORGE in February 2028 as part of the creative hub’s fifth birthday celebrations.

That exhibition provides more than a deadline. It gives the work a public destination and the resident an opportunity to communicate their ideas to the wider industry.

A collection changes when it moves from a bench into an exhibition. The maker must consider presentation, pricing, narrative and how individual pieces relate to one another.

The residency therefore follows an entire creative journey: from access to materials and equipment through to professional imagery, industry visibility and public presentation.

Contemporary jewellery by independent designers displayed in the FORGE showroom in Hatton Garden

Who can apply?

The residency is open to UK-based jewellery graduates and emerging makers who completed their education or equivalent structured training during the 2023/24 academic year or later.

Applications are welcomed from university jewellery courses, recognised vocational programmes, apprenticeships and comparable training routes.

Applicants should have sufficient technical experience to work independently in a professional shared workshop.

Each application must include a portfolio of recent work, a personal statement, an outline development and financial plan, and initial ideas or designs for the collection the applicant hopes to develop.

Candidates will be assessed on the quality and potential of their work, their creative ambitions, commitment to the opportunity and the proposed direction of their collection.

Shortlisted applicants will be invited to an interview and asked to bring physical examples of their work.

The selection panel will include Amanda Mansell of FORGE; Sian Brown of Cooksongold; silversmith and jeweller Jessica Jue; and FORGE member Makila Nsika, a 2024 Central Saint Martins graduate and first-time Goldsmiths’ Fair exhibitor in 2026.

Including a recent graduate on the panel is particularly welcome. It introduces the perspective of someone who understands the transition not as an abstract industry concern, but as a lived and recent experience.

Applications close at 23:59 on Wednesday 4 November 2026.

FORGE, the independent creative jewellery hub and professional workshop at 59 Leather Lane in Hatton Garden

The Jewels Club Take

The most convincing industry initiatives are often those that solve an unglamorous but consequential problem.

This residency is not built around a trophy, a single evening or a moment of publicity. It provides a bench, regular working time, tools, metal, advice, community, professional photography and an exhibition.

Each element supports a different stage in the development of a jeweller.

FORGE brings the physical space and professional community. Cooksongold brings materials, equipment, industry knowledge and a relationship with makers that can extend across an entire career.

Together, they are addressing the missing middle between learning how to make jewellery and establishing a sustainable place within the trade.

Cooksongold’s most credible role in supporting the next generation is not merely selling someone their first saw frame. It is helping to ensure there is still a bench on which they can use it.

If the industry wants skilled graduates to become distinctive professional jewellers, it must give them the time and space required to develop a voice of their own.

This residency does exactly that.

Discover More

Applications for the Cooksongold x FORGE Graduate Residency close at 23:59 on Wednesday 4 November 2026.

Apply for the graduate residency

Discover jewellery-making materials, tools and professional services at Cooksongold.

Learn more about the workshop, membership community and events at FORGE.

Follow Cooksongold on Instagram and FORGE on Instagram.