Apprenticeships – The tech industry’s knight in shining armour
The UK Technology industry, undoubtedly an amazing environment, though for every opportunity it presents a challenge must be overcome too – BYOD vs security, data proliferation vs network capacity to name but two. The challenge is no different when it comes to skills; recruiting top talent remains one of the key obstacles for the tech industry, and as the demand for young skilled personnel grows, so has the mechanisms to recruit and develop such talent.
Apprenticeships have a long tradition in the UK, dating back as far 12th century. The parents of a minor would agree with a Guild’s Master craftsman the conditions for an apprenticeship which would bind the minor for up to 9 years, and be recorded in an indenture. Moving forward nine hundred years and now thankfully with complete freewill of the apprentice, apprenticeships remain a key pillar in supporting a constantly evolving UK economy.
In the UK we face a significant challenge; we’re at a skills-gap crossroad. Over the next five years we need to fill more than 500,000 jobs in the technology industry alone. To help fill this void, apprenticeships are growing in popularity and prominence for both employers and students – the IT sector has seen a huge rise in apprentices, increasing by 108% from 2013-2014.
With the Department for Business Innovation and Skills announcing this week that Apprenticeships will have the same legal status as degrees will further help them to grow. It will further position apprenticeships as a viable career launch-pad for young people, by giving the vocational programme parity of esteem with university programmes.
Developments over the last five years have seen the introduction of Higher Apprenticeships and now Degree Apprenticeships, giving young people a vocational route to university qualifications, without ever having to step onto campus. This subtle difference has often left young people not considering Apprenticeships because they have been drilled to understand that success is related to which university you attend, and what course you study.
The recent surge in IT apprenticeship comes from the need to develop specific skills that can’t be taught in the classroom; graduate programmes often require re-learning of knowledge in order to refine application in the workplace. There is no right or wrong way to enter the sector, but with schools targeted on the number of young people that go on to University, the Enterprise Bill will give an apprenticeship the equal focus giving schools the incentive to see their connections with business as important as Universities.
Cisco, along with many other IT organisations including Microsoft, Capgemini, IBM, and Fujitsu, have worked together to develop new trailblazer standards and degrees that are designed by employers, delivered by colleges, training providers or universities for the benefit of the industry. The new programmes ensure that Apprenticeships are high quality, follow professional qualifications and provide the skills needed to fill the current void inhibiting growth. These programmes can only run with a diverse group of talented young people; an apprenticeship provides the open door to the industry that can often feel the furthest away from the traditional curriculum and gives businesses bottom line benefits in terms of increased productivity, retention of staff, and reduced training costs through government subsidies.
The government has spent the last five years encouraging employers to get behind apprenticeships, which they have done, and particularly so in the tech industry. This has seen employers work together as a sector to attract talent; the downside of this is that there is now a lack of good quality candidates because university is still their first choice. To some degree the good work is somewhat perpetuating the vacancy issue, but where it is working, it’s really working very well. For every £1 the government spends on apprenticeship training, the economy benefits £18. Which ultimately means that the more apprenticeships aren’t seen as the underdog, the more talented young people will consider apprenticeships as a chosen route for further education, and subsequently the more that GDP benefit will increase.
Cisco has recruited Apprentices since 2011 and has increased the number of opportunities year-on-year growing from a cohort of 6 young people to 40 in 2015. Identifying top talent amongst a group of young people whose priority is UCAS applications is challenging, but one that should continue to ease as the presence of apprenticeships continues to flourish in the UK.
1 Comments
a really intelligent, informed review. Thank you.