To celebrate National Apprenticeships Week this blog goes into detail about apprenticeships including the difference between apprenticeships, skills and benefits you could gain by doing an apprenticeships, and different career paths you could follow.
An apprenticeship involves around 80% of hands-on work for the company you decide to do your apprenticeship with. The other 20% of your time will be spent studying for your apprenticeship. This means you will get hands-on experience working in your chosen field.
Levels of Apprenticeship
There are many different apprenticeships that exist at different levels. In summary…
- The first type of apprenticeship is intermediate apprenticeships. The qualifications you’ll get from an apprenticeship like this are equivalent to a 5 to 9 at GCSE.
- Advanced apprenticeships are equivalent to A levels.
- Higher apprenticeships are equivalent to a foundation degree or the first year of an undergraduate degree.
- A Degree apprenticeship means you will gain a full bachelor’s degree.
Benefits of an apprenticeship
No matter what type of apprenticeship you decide to do, you’ll gain hands on experience in the sector of your choice. This means that as well as an extensive knowledge of that sector you’ll also gain lots of transferable skills that can be applied to many different sectors. For example, you’ll gain skills like adaptability, problem solving, communication and teamwork to name a few.
Other benefits of apprenticeships include that you get paid to learn! You get to learn new skills as well as get on the job training and get paid for it. What you’ll earn differs depending on different factors such as age and industry. However, getting paid to learn and not having to pay tuition fees is often considered one of the most appealing reasons to do an apprenticeship.
There are so many other benefits to doing an apprenticeship and each employer will often also offer a variety of other benefits. It is worth researching different companies and seeing what they offer when you’re thinking about applying for an apprenticeship.
Careers
Apprenticeships allow you to follow lots of different career paths depending on what you are interested in. There are lots of different apprenticeships available in multiple sectors. For example, popular national programs include:
- The Government Economic Service Degree Apprenticeship Programme (GESDAP). This is available in all major cities.
- Jaguar Land Rover Applied Professional Engineering Programme Degree Apprenticeship. These are available at all Jaguar Land rover bases (Liverpool, West Midlands, etc).
- National Grid Gas Engineering Advance Apprentice, Gas Transmission. Available at numerous locations.
- Channel 4 Apprenticeships in a range of roles. Based in Leeds, London, Manchester and Glasgow.
This is only a very small amount of the apprenticeship opportunities that are available. Check out all the available apprenticeship opportunities here: Find an apprenticeship – GOV.UK. Similarly check out Apprenticeship Arcade – Amazing Apprenticeships- to play apprenticeship themed games!
If you want to find out more about apprenticeships check out our website where there are E- courses designed to give you more information about apprenticeships and the apprenticeship application process. These can be found here: Our Courses & Presentations – Hello Future