Reviving a culture of apprenticeships
I firmly believe that without apprenticeships, the U.K. will never be a high value economy
Lucy Cohen recently wrote an impassioned story about the value of apprenticeships. It’s a terrific read and I’m stealing most of it:
Back in 2002, I realised two things.
1️⃣ I did not want to have a career in the arts (I'd got into Exeter University to study drama)
2️⃣ Even if I had wanted to go, I couldn't have afforded it.
For various reasons, going to university was logistically and economically unfeasible for me. So what did I do?
I went to a local careers office who suggested accountancy as a career. I said that I couldn't afford to go to university to study, which is when I found out about apprenticeships. My mind was blown. I could work, earn money and study? Sold!
I marched over to the nearest hotel and basically demanded a job on their finance team.
Them - "Can you do purchase ledger?"
Me - "Probably"
It worked. I was in!
I started studying for my AAT qualifications immediately and never looked back.
Fast forward to today and I'm 16 years into running a company. Without my apprenticeship Mazuma Accountants wouldn't have existed, we wouldn't have created all of the jobs we have, and thousands and thousands of small businesses would have been left without the world's first accountancy subscription! 😁
I vaguely remember having a conversation with Lucy about 12 (?) years ago. While the content detail escapes me, her enthusiasm and drive left an impression that persists to today. I remember putting the phone down and thinking: this girl is going to stir things up. And so it has proven to be.
Coincidentally, as I went to cut and paste her words, a post from Nick Butler appeared at the top of my LinkedIn feed. Nick says:
I can count on the fingers of one hand the 'professionals' who took time to mentor, guide, advice and direct me as a teenager and twenty something into my professional career.
I'm working now with Crawley College to provide (paid) work placement positions for students so they can develop skills on projects which matter to my own business and my clients.
There are far too many professionals I have worked with whose approach to information and learning is to restrict, curate, and silo information and knowledge to ensure their own value.
An attitude which undoubtedly creates profit for them; and a weaker environment for us all.
Nick’s words resonate but there is something deeper here. In recent times I’ve been puzzling to understand how the U.K. economy got into the mess it’s in today. Yes, there’s the appalling and corrupt politics that would make failed state despots blush but my view is that we’ve largely forgotten the value of apprenticeship. I trace that back to c1985, the year machines and robots started to make their presence felt in the U.K. automotive industry but which has since spread to all sectors of U.K. manufacturing.
In 1985, my father was made redundant as a skilled toolmaker at the Luton Vauxhall Motors plant. He’d been there since 1958. At its height, the plant employed 30,000 people. Today it’s about 1,100 yet produces more vehicles than it did in its heyday. Innovative tech won and that was a net good. Those who were displaced had no obvious future. My father was fortunate and went on to apply his hand skills at a small business for 10 years until he reached what was then the retirement age of 65. That career would not have been possible without the training he received in the REME, an army support unit. That training was the equivalent to an apprenticeship, a common way of learning at the time. How things have changed!
While it is true that British manufacturing has shrunk dramatically in the last 40 years, it is clear that mixed economies outperform those that are heavily skewed in one direction or another. Switzerland has one of the world’s most vibrant manufacturing sectors alongside its services sector. It’s also one of the wealthiest countries per capita. In contrast, the U.K. has become heavily dependent on a finance centric services economy that’s largely concentrated in London but with small outliers in Leeds, Manchester and Edinburgh.
One problem I hear is that employers are faced with bureaucracy that discourages employment. Another I hear is the fear that once trained, an apprentice will jump ship at the first opportunity. Yet as a consumer of trade related skills, it’s increasingly difficult to find well qualified plumbers, electricians, carpenters, roofers, painters and other related building trades. Most recently I had several conversations with former business colleagues where the common theme was about the difficulty in finding fresh talent capable of providing incisive analysis.
It seems the latest generation of current and future workers have been schooled to believe they need or will need to think in terms of multiple career paths. If you believe that then where is the incentive to train or learn?
Paradoxically, we are also told that the future lies in high skilled work. I can’t find anyone who can adequately explain what that means beyond talking vaguely about tech led innovation. I certainly don’t see the practical training initiatives that support such aspirations. Perhaps I’m not looking hard enough. But then I was horrified to learn that one of my grandchildren, who is in his final year as a computer science under graduate, received no guidance about vocational placement at firms that could offer practical introductions to real world work. As a consequence, he’s become disillusioned and has no clue what to do once his studies are completed.
Another problem I see is the relentless drive to push children into higher education at the expense of vocational training. I get that some careers require a university degree foundation but to me it has gone too far. Why for instance do nurses need this pathway with the attendant implied debt burden?
I accept there are no easy answers. Lucy and Nick provide one approach but they’re outliers who see the value to ‘paying forward.’ Instead, I’d like to see the political will to actively support a revived focus on a comprehensive apprenticeship plan in all its forms. As far as I can tell, that doesn’t exist today.
Oh - and by the way - I’m told it’s National Apprenticeship Week. I would not have known that unless Lucy hadn’t told me.
Fully agree with you Den. For some reasons apprenticeship became a word for low paid and everything was driven towards higher education. That has had a huge impact on people not even looking at apprenticeships.
Thankfully, certainly in the area on professional services, there are plenty of really good apprenticeships available, both inside and outside of tech (I presented this week to our new apprentices at PwC). The challenge is to get people to even realise that they are there and that they don't need to go to University.
They are well paid too and are put on the same programmes as the graduates. From my experience they are usually further ahead in their career than the graduates too, as they've used that 3 years well.
I don't have the data, but interestingly at my former company, there was a general feeling that the apprentices were more loyal and stayed longer than the graduates.
My final comment, reading Oliver's comment, is that many companies are now offering apprenticeships. Bentley is a local employer to me and they've offered them for years and helped to fund a local training centre. Rolls-Royce aerospace built a whole centre for all the apprenticeships on it's Derby site. Network Rail takes on lots every year too. The apprenticeship levy is helping too, with companies realising that they're paying into it, but they don't get anything back unless they are taking on apprentices.
So in my view, it is getting there, we need to shout more about them and ensure that people realise that there is an excellent alternative to going to University. The announcement that UCAS will allow you to search for apprenticeships as well as will be a help towards this too.
I grew up in Coventry. The working class youth hierarchy chart was... best: Apprenticeship at Rolls Royce, Jaguar, Chrysler, Alfred Herbert or any of a huge number of other options including trades. Medium: got to Uni/college, and get qualified, usually in management or similar, work for tradesmen.
Worse: doss about, do arts courses at uni (unless you were from a wealthy background of course).
Those options and opportunities are now pretty much gone. They need to return and globalized companies need to be forced to get back to helping future generations.