Apprenticeships are the best way for local young people to learn a trade which will stand by them throughout their career.

At their best, apprenticeships are a mutualistic partnership between employer and apprentice. With an apprentice, the employer can take on more work, they can pick up bigger contracts and they end up with a well-qualified employee with well-rounded expertise. In return, the apprentice gets on-site experience and learns practical skills to complement their theoretical learning, which will provide dividends at the end of their training. They earn as they learn, whereas their peers at university will find themselves graduating with mountains of debt and uncertain job prospects.

The four years that an apprentice stays with an employer is a long enough time for the apprentice to become an invaluable addition. They adapt to your company’s needs – ex-apprentices know how you like to work, they have the skills to complement your business and are very talented team members. As a result, the majority of qualifying apprentices stay with the firms they apprenticed with, taking on new responsibilities – becoming managers and supervisors – and perhaps guiding the new intake of apprentices through their qualifications. In this way, they will help to perpetuate the industry in which they work.

Those who qualify through apprenticeships are fully-qualified with on-site experience and a wealth of knowledge you simply can’t get through without the work-based aspect of apprentice training.