Supercar maker McLaren is hunting for tailors, dressmakers and boat builders as part of a recruitment drive to double the workforce at its new £50 million manufacturing site in Yorkshire.

The luxury car firm is searching for candidates with specific skills to help work with pioneering materials such as ultra-lightweight carbon fibre at its McLaren Composites Technology Centre (MCTC), which was launched a year ago to the day.

McLaren said the next phase of recruitment will see it almost triple the current team of up to 70 staff to over 200 by the time the site near Sheffield is in full production in early 2020.

The news further strengthens McLaren's links with Yorkshire after the company opened a brand new showroom in Leeds last month.

Speaking to the Telegraph & Argus during the Leeds showroom's launch, McLaren’s design director Rob Melville, who was brought up in Rawdon, said: "Yorkshire is like our second home.”

In terms of its Sheffield site, McLaren wants candidates with experience from a raft of sectors, from boat building to the textiles trade to sporting goods industries. The positions include apprenticeships and degree apprenticeships, it added.

McLaren said these specific skills are vital, because carbon fibre - which is used to build the chassis, or so-called tubs, at the core of its sports cars - starts life as a fabric.

It has to be cut, put into moulds and then treated before becoming a hard material for use in car manufacturing.

The workforce at its new site in Yorkshire will help make the next generation of McLaren carbon fibre tubs that will be sent to its main car production centre in Woking, Surrey.

It is hoped the use of these advanced lighter materials will help save vehicle weight - boosting performance, as well as allowing supercars to become more energy-efficient.

Mike Flewitt, chief executive of McLaren Automotive, said: "As we're working with advanced, lightweight materials in new ways that have never been used before on this scale for car production, McLaren is looking for a range of skills you wouldn't normally associate with the automotive industry."

"The advanced technologies and processes they will be working on could one day be used in other industries to produce lighter, and therefore more efficient, vehicles, which will not only help McLaren to continue to innovate, but the UK to become a global leader in composite materials expertise," he added.

The opening of the MCTC site a year ago was attended the by Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, as well as Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the Crown Prince of Bahrain.

McLaren is hoping the site will help boost the local economy by £100 million by 2028, while also supporting skills development in the region.

“Yorkshire is like our second home,” McLaren’s design director told the Telegraph & Argus as the supercar firm launched its new dealership here in West Yorkshire.

Rob Melville, who was brought up in Rawdon, was speaking to the T&A as McLaren unveiled its impressive new Leeds showroom, near junction 45 of the M1.

The move further strengthens McLaren’s links with the White Rose County, coming less than a year after its £50m investment in the new Composites Technology Centre in Sheffield, where the company plans to make its carbon fibre tubs, creating up to 200 jobs.

Mr Melville, who was a pupil at Benton Park School in Rawdon before studying at the University of Huddersfield, has been at McLaren for around ten years, after previously working for General Motors and Jaguar Land Rover.

Asked about the new Leeds dealership and the Sheffield factory, he said: “Yorkshire is like our second home.

“Apart from the Italian manufacturers, who else makes supercars? Britain is the only other country that can boast it and it’s nice to see it spreading around the country, with things like the factory in Sheffield.”