As an apprentice – you will benefit the company you work for

When a company takes you on as an apprentice, they’re not doing you a good turn, although you can be sure that you are getting started on a career path. Taking on an apprentice is good business. You begin your career, earning, learning and developing valuable work skills

• The company actively creates a workforce that is skilled in those areas which are valuable to their business
• The industry area is kept alive and strengthened by a sustained, skilled workforce, which in turn bolsters the growth of the UK economy.

We’ve all experienced how difficult it is to pick up something that has been started off by someone else and turn it into the finished product that you want. If you’re building a house and someone has laid the foundations in a way that prevents you creating the building that you want – that’s a problem and sometimes you need to start all over again. One of the greatest benefits of hiring an apprentice for the employer is that they can lay those foundations.

Many employers speak of the problem of young people entering the workforce lacking in the core employability skills necessary and also of the difficulty of employing graduates, some of whom have unrealistic expectations and a sense of entitlement that leads them to believe that some jobs are ‘beneath them’. As an apprentices be ready to enter a company with an understanding that your employer is investing in you and that you will be mastering the basics in return for a wage, which although below the national minimum, reflects the investment that the employer is making in you.

For your employer, employing an apprentice is an investment in the future of their business as well as in you and 70 per cent of employers report that their business was improved with the employment of apprentices. If you're not ready for an apprenticeship ,perhaps a traineeship would be right for you.

Demand for apprenticeships exceeded supply in 2013/14 by 1,645, 470. The total number of young people who applied for an apprenticeship numbered 1,811,620 and they competed for 166,150 vacancies. What does this tell us?...we need and want more apprenticeships.

The sectors which saw the greatest demand included: business, law and admin, engineering and healthcare, all of which are predicted growth areas according to labour market statistics provided by UKCES. This paints a positive picture in one respect; young people are seeking careers of the future.