Last week saw UK students across the country receiving their A-level results, which determine their futures.
To raise awareness of IT and tech apprenticeships amongst young people, apprenticeship provider QA Ltd hosted pop-up parties at a number of schools across the country – London, Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham and Reading.
The IT degree apprenticeship option
The newest option available to young A-level students is the Degree Apprenticeship, which is a fresh new take on a traditional University degree. The Degree Apprenticeships offer young people the opportunity to get a BSc degree without the debt, all whilst working and earning a salary over a three-year period.
Last week, QA Ltd announced that it had placed its 10,000th apprentice into a tech career. This apprentice has been given an unconditional offer based on his predicted grades.
UK’s digital skills crisis
According to a recent ‘Digital Skills Crisis’ government report, the UK needs another 745,000 workers with digital skills by 2017. With the digital skills gap costing the economy roughly £63 billion a year in lost income, it’s important to raise awareness of digital career opportunities available to students leaving school.
“The government has set itself a target of delivering 3 million apprentices by 2020 and the apprenticeship levy (which comes into effect in April 2017) is intended to encourage large businesses to employ a greater number of apprentices. These factors are leading to increased demand for students to start an apprenticeship and so it is imperative that more is done to raise awareness of the great and exciting opportunities that an apprenticeship can offer to young people,” said Ben Pike, Director, QA Apprenticeships.
Minister of State for Digital and Culture Matt Hancock showed his support for this initiative commenting that: “The UK’s digital economy is the largest and fastest growing in the G20 and employs more than 1.4 million people. It’s vital that our workforce is properly equipped with the necessary skills, and QA has done an incredible job in training 10,000 apprentices to date. These digital experts will provide a welcome boost to British business and help power the nation’s continuing economic growth.”
QA is aiming to create over 6000 opportunities available for school leavers over the next year in the UK, including over 2500 in Scotland. Interested applicants can apply at http://apprenticeships.qa.com/.
Edited for web by Cecilia Rehn.
