How apprenticeships moved out of the workshop
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Loading... - JEN MURPHY
- 06 Mar 2021
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It is too early to say if the apprenticeship levy – a tax placed last April on large UK employers with a wage bill of £3m-plus – will affect the traditional popularity rankings for apprenticeships across all industry sectors. Much will depend on how employers spend the levy funds they claw back from the government to support apprenticeship provision.
Government figures for 2016-17 show the public sector (including health, public services and care) in first place. Other popular sectors include business, administration and law; retail and commercial enterprise; engineering and manufacturing; and construction.
Why are some sectors more popular than others? Traditionally, apprenticeships in engineering and construction have been recognised as solid career progression routes. Ann Watson, CEO of Semta – the engineering sector’s employer-led skills body – says engineering apprenticeships have long been a “tried and tested, employer-backed and valued route into a rewarding and enjoyable career”.
At its annual skills awards in March, young apprentice Pippa Dressler-Pearson won the Best of British Engineering award; she now promotes the apprenticeship route. “You won’t be an apprentice forever, but when you come out the other side, you will really feel you have achieved so much,” she says.
Watson adds that a preliminary survey of engineering apprentices last year showed 98% were happy with their career choice. She cites TUC research that 86% of engineering apprentices stay in the sector for at least five years after finishing – proof that employers really trust their apprentices and value the skills they have gained.
“Engineering apprenticeships are not stigmatised,” says Teresa Frith, senior skills policy manager at the Association of Colleges (AoC). “You get really good buy-in from companies as there is a strong collaborative partnership between employers and providers in developing apprenticeships.”
Andy Cheshire, managing director of independent training provider CQM Training & Consultancy, says the food and drinks industry, which accounts for about 85% of his company’s client base, “has really embraced the new-style apprenticeships as a way to breed future talent in factories and supply chains.
“Within two or three years, young apprentices, starting at 18, can be technical operators, changing over production lines, monitoring all the throughputs, driving performance. It’s a tremendous responsibility.”
CQM, which won the 2017 Training Programme of the Year title at the Food Manufacture Excellence Awards with its client, Bakkavor Hitchen Foods, has picked up a string of Young Talent of the Year awards over the years. Its secret? “We challenge our apprentices to make substantial improvements to the businesses they work in. We also work really hard to enable our employer clients to see us as an extension of their operation.”
But it’s not just the traditionally apprentice-friendly sectors that are embracing them. Radical changes both to how apprenticeships are funded, through the levy, and employers’ sway over training standards have encouraged more apprenticeships to be created.
In fact, the range of apprenticeships on offer is mushrooming, given that only 15% of levy payers were taking on apprentices before the apprenticeship levy came into force, according to Mark Dawe, CEO of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers. “Employers ask how they can get their levy back through funding and start looking at their whole recruitment strategy. Could their new recruits and/or existing staff become apprentices?”
The finance sector is a case in point. “It had no apprenticeship tradition and yet has really worked together as a sector to develop a range of standards for different employment situations,” says Frith.
Ben Murphy, head of Barclays’ programme management for apprentices, points out that the bank has 700 apprentices, and records an 86% retention rate among its higher apprentices once qualified.
“We want to create a pathway to progression,” he says. “We have a suite of apprenticeship programmes and aim to create a structure of succession planning within our apprenticeship community and also for internal colleagues. We want to offer equal opportunities for all.”
