Apprenticeships – New or Recycled

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I first wrote this article in March 2019 when my daughter was exploring her options coming to the end of high school. What we didn’t know was that the world was about to come to a halt. She chose to train as a chef and with the situation she completed this at technical college rather than in an apprenticeship as hospitality was hit hard. Move on 7 years and to coincide with National Apprenticeship Week 2026 in February that I wanted to recycle my musings. Several companies have moved into insolvency and I’ve personally seen many apprentices using LinkedIn reaching our for their next opportunity, many of which need help to finish their apprenticeship programs.

Reflecting in 2019 I was going through the journey that my parents did with me back in the early 1990's with my daughter trying to decide what she wants to do after leaving high-school. At the time she had another year to decide.

This has made me reflect on my career having started as a Sponsored ‘Modern' Apprentice with ICI Chemicals & Polymers and attending Technical Training Enterprises Ltd (Ellesmere Port).

I now am privileged to be a European and Chartered Engineer with the InstMC working in a consultancy role working in varying companies. I am also happy to see that when I engage with companies with their Maintenance Technicians to see some companies active in their employment of Apprentices. But is this ‘new' or not?

Looking back at the time in which I was deciding on my future I had three options:

1) Apprenticeship through TTE
2) Full time college doing A Levels
3) Full time college doing a technical BTEC course

I knew that I wanted to study engineering and eventually obtain a degree. At the time my mother worked in an Engineering Design office and canvassed the opinions of the managers about three candidates. One of each option. Each of the managers stated they would take the person who was an Apprentice. When she disclosed that it was myself who was pondering, they immediately changed their mind and said A levels was the candidate (they knew me due to work experience).

I thought that attitudes towards Apprentices had changed in the previous 2 decades but having been engaging this journey of discovery I have discovered a few things:

Training providers are on-board with Apprenticeships far more than in my day (at a college open night they had around 20 main areas offering apprenticeships)
There are a shortage of places offering opportunities (maybe increased focus from Government)

So why ask the question new or recycled?

Modern has gone from the title!
The principles are exactly the same as the courses provided by industry for many decades.

I spoke with someone at a local event in my role (at the time) as InstMC Central Northwest chair recently in which the individual was ridiculed by his peers for wanting to be an Apprentice and move towards a degree this way. Exactly the same as the early 1990's!

This guy was at an event in a university wanting to learn more about Engineering!

Would I change anything?

Absolutely not, I've worked with some very challenging processes (not only chemical / oil kind but administrative too), great people, experienced many things all of which have led me to be the person I am today.

So, what was my advice for my daughter? Well for one the battle is lost on Engineering. But I encouraged her to explore all options and to consider seriously an Apprenticeship. Even if she decided to do a full time 1-year course in advance. Keep her options open.

My advice to anyone – consider everything and don't be concerned about peers. The guy at the event was so enthusiast about his course and experiences it was really great to see. He was bouncing with enthusiasm.

Something to note though one thing has changed about Apprenticeships is that they are no longer limited to level 3 (trade) qualifications. I completed an Apprenticeship at Level 5 in Leadership and Management in 2019. They now go to level 7 (degree level). Why not check if you can improve yourself on an Apprenticeship today.

Good luck to all those 16 year olds trying to decide on their future too. They won’t have seen my original post about this as LinkedIn is not for the young I keep getting told, maybe they’ll see this article more!

I would love to hear more stories of Apprenticeship success. Please do connect with me on LinkedIn or message through the PII website. I’m keen to move forward more recognition for engineering Apprenticeship schemes feeding more into Engineering Technician (EngTech) professional registration. More on this in a future article….