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Posted in Employers on Apr 14, 2013 by Richard Hayden
Generating and maintaining a pool of talent to sustain your business is central to long term success.
Many employers feel that the education system is failing to equip students with the skills their business needs, creating a shortfall in the employment market and high levels of youth un-employment to-boot. Could Higher Apprenticeships be the answer?
While research suggests that many people still believe apprenticeships are more appropriate for blue-collar roles, Gaenor Bagley of PricewaterhouseCoopers' argues that service-focused apprenticeships could be the boost the economy needs.
National Apprenticeship Week in March yielded mixed news for employers. On the one hand, research from the Centre for Economics and Business Research suggested that between now and 2022, almost four million people will complete an apprenticeship and boost the economy by £3.4 billion. On the other, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) highlighted how apprenticeships still suffer from the misconception they are more appropriate for manual or blue-collar roles, and that only one-fifth of parents felt an apprenticeship had the "same status" as a university education.
More recently however, there was more positive news for apprenticeships; a report published by ICM research found that higher apprentices are more employable than university graduates.
Bagley as head of people at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), has been heavily involved in building and promoting the company's Higher Apprenticeship programmes in professional services. Their programmes deliver training and qualifications in areas including business recovery, tax and consulting. They have been working with more than 40 other employers in the sector, including many small and medium-sized enterprises, to promote this route as a viable alternative to university for school leavers.
Higher Apprenticeships
PwC was one of the first major graduate recruiters to extend its recruitment pool to school leavers, having provided an A-level entry scheme for more than 10 years. When £1.5 million in funding to support new Higher Apprenticeships in the professional services sector was announced 2011, this seemed like a perfect opportunity to formalise that programme.
Given that a Higher Apprenticeship offered an equivalent to the early stages of a university degree just as universities were announcing their new fee structures, this provided an added incentive to offer candidates an alternative route into a career.
Bagley explained: "We had started to recruit school leavers almost as an experiment. We weren't very clear what we wanted them to do - should we transfer them onto our graduate track, for example? There are some areas of the business that really benefit from having school leavers on board ,and having the Higher Apprenticeship makes the programme distinctive and gives it a clear career profile."
Just to get onto the apprenticeship, applicants need to gain a similar level of UCAS points that would grant them access to a university course.
"If you look at the calibre of the candidates, it's astonishing," says Bagley. "These are people that could go to university but decide not to. We're not saying we don't still want graduates - it's the same talent, they're just coming to us via a different route."
There's no denying PwC's school-leaver schemes are popular. The company has experienced a rise of 318% in applications for both the Higher Apprenticeship and school-leaver programmes since the financial crisis began in 2008. Last year, the company created 30 new apprenticeship positions across its teams in London, and during 2013 will take on a further 50 higher apprentices in tax and consulting.
If you are serious about developing your own talent, look no further than the model of the Higher Apprenticeship scheme.
Many employers feel that the education system is failing to equip students with the skills their business needs, creating a shortfall in the employment market and high levels of youth un-employment to-boot. Could Higher Apprenticeships be the answer?
While research suggests that many people still believe apprenticeships are more appropriate for blue-collar roles, Gaenor Bagley of PricewaterhouseCoopers' argues that service-focused apprenticeships could be the boost the economy needs.
National Apprenticeship Week in March yielded mixed news for employers. On the one hand, research from the Centre for Economics and Business Research suggested that between now and 2022, almost four million people will complete an apprenticeship and boost the economy by £3.4 billion. On the other, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) highlighted how apprenticeships still suffer from the misconception they are more appropriate for manual or blue-collar roles, and that only one-fifth of parents felt an apprenticeship had the "same status" as a university education.
More recently however, there was more positive news for apprenticeships; a report published by ICM research found that higher apprentices are more employable than university graduates.
Bagley as head of people at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), has been heavily involved in building and promoting the company's Higher Apprenticeship programmes in professional services. Their programmes deliver training and qualifications in areas including business recovery, tax and consulting. They have been working with more than 40 other employers in the sector, including many small and medium-sized enterprises, to promote this route as a viable alternative to university for school leavers.
Higher Apprenticeships
PwC was one of the first major graduate recruiters to extend its recruitment pool to school leavers, having provided an A-level entry scheme for more than 10 years. When £1.5 million in funding to support new Higher Apprenticeships in the professional services sector was announced 2011, this seemed like a perfect opportunity to formalise that programme.
Given that a Higher Apprenticeship offered an equivalent to the early stages of a university degree just as universities were announcing their new fee structures, this provided an added incentive to offer candidates an alternative route into a career.
Bagley explained: "We had started to recruit school leavers almost as an experiment. We weren't very clear what we wanted them to do - should we transfer them onto our graduate track, for example? There are some areas of the business that really benefit from having school leavers on board ,and having the Higher Apprenticeship makes the programme distinctive and gives it a clear career profile."
Just to get onto the apprenticeship, applicants need to gain a similar level of UCAS points that would grant them access to a university course.
"If you look at the calibre of the candidates, it's astonishing," says Bagley. "These are people that could go to university but decide not to. We're not saying we don't still want graduates - it's the same talent, they're just coming to us via a different route."
There's no denying PwC's school-leaver schemes are popular. The company has experienced a rise of 318% in applications for both the Higher Apprenticeship and school-leaver programmes since the financial crisis began in 2008. Last year, the company created 30 new apprenticeship positions across its teams in London, and during 2013 will take on a further 50 higher apprentices in tax and consulting.
If you are serious about developing your own talent, look no further than the model of the Higher Apprenticeship scheme.
