Meet Your Future: National Apprenticeships Week 2023
Welcome to National Apprenticeship Week 2023. We hope you’ve enjoyed all the events going on so far! As always, it’s been a really vibrant and exciting week celebrating all things to do with apprenticeships and early careers pathways.
As part of the Meet Your Future series, we’ve had a fantastic time this week talking to over 50,000 young people. We’ve been running live talks every single day this week, where you can meet employers in Greater Manchester from a range of sectors including hospitality, finance, and many more! Check out the events section for more details of the events on offer and what’s coming soon.
We record all these talks, too and upload them to our YouTube channel, so you can catch up with any you missed whenever you like and watch them back again to help with your research into your education choices. Click below to head over to our channel where you can find archives of all the Meet Your Future talks we’ve done!
What is National Apprenticeships Week?
National Apprenticeships Week is a national event celebrating apprenticeships and everything they can offer. This year’s theme is “Skills for Life.” This is all about talking how apprenticeships can set you up with the skills you need to succeed throughout your career.
Because there’s so much going on to celebrate, National Apprenticeships Week is a great time to introduce yourself to the pathways and options that are available to you when you leave school or college. Don’t forget, though, that apprenticeships are an option for life. So, even if you’re planning on starting your career or going away to uni, they might still be a good option for you later in your career! It’s always worth researching and getting the knowledge you need to take your next best steps in your career or education.
To help you with your research, we’ve collated some resources and information that you can use to research apprenticeships and understand the wide range of options that are available to you in Greater Manchester. There’s info on GMACS, as well as some videos and other resources that you can check out – so there’s something for everyone here for National Apprenticeships Week. And, we’ve added Careers Tasks to each resource, so you can structure your research and thinking.
Search for apprenticeships on GMACS
The GMACS apprenticeship search is the perfect place to get started with your research into apprenticeships. Using this tool, you can see apprenticeships across Greater Manchester. These are live vacancies, so it’s a great way to look into what companies are hiring apprentices in your area. You can filter the results by specific sectors, so you can look just at the kind of jobs that interests you. Plus, there’s a postcode lookup feature, so you can see what apprenticeships are available in your area, or in the area that you think you might like to work.
You can click through to each apprenticeship to find out a bit more about what’s on offer, and it’s easy to click through to apply, if you’d like to!
Careers Task: Choose a sector, and a postcode area. This could be where you live, or in another area of Greater Manchester. Look at the kinds of apprenticeship on offer. Are these what you expected to see? Are any of them a surprise to you?
Find out more about apprenticeships on GMACS
GMACS is packed full of information about apprenticeships, as well as the other pathways you could choose to start your career – or get extra skills later in life. The apprenticeships page has all the information you need to start thinking about whether an apprenticeship is right for you. It includes info on why to choose an apprenticeship and what to expect, plus lots of your most asked questions.
Careers Task: Choose one of the FAQs on the apprenticeships page that you don’t know the answer to. Read the information and see if it sets your mind at ease. Then, consider whether it’s changed your opinion on apprenticeships – does it make them more attractive as an option for you, or less so?
Learn about the apprenticeship journey with these videos
If you’re thinking about an apprenticeship as an option for you, it’s helpful to hear from people who have already made that decision. They can tell you what doing an apprenticeship is really like – hear it right from them in these videos!
Each of these videos will tell you about a different part of the apprenticeship journey. In the first video, apprentices from William Hare and Barclays talk about their experiences with applying for and starting an apprenticeship. In the second, they talk about what the learning experience is like, and how the balance between training and working was. In the last video, they talk about assessments and finishing an apprenticeship – as well as where you can go after!
Click the buttons below to access each video:
Careers Task: Choose the video that interests you most. Watch it, while thinking about how it relates to the apprenticeship journey. Does what the apprentices are telling you match your expectations of an apprenticeship? What’s different?
Learn about higher and degree level apprenticeships
There are lots of different kinds of apprenticeships – not all of them are designed for entry level or early careers skills. Some of them are designed to help you advance to higher levels of qualifications or to take the next step in a career you’ve been in for a while. Higher and degree level apprenticeships give you the chance to earn Level 4 and above qualifications or degrees.
Find out more about higher and degree level apprenticeships in this video.
Careers Task: Watch the video and consider whether you think a higher or degree level apprenticeship could help you get the job you think you’d like. This might not be straight away, but further down the line. Why not have a look on the GMACS apprenticeship search to see if any degree level apprenticeships are available in your chosen sector?
Find out about apprenticeships in specific sectors
If you’re interested in a specific sector, it’s worth researching how apprenticeships work in that area. There can be some differences from sector to sector, with apprenticeships being the norm in some jobs and for some careers, with other jobs mostly using different routes. However, don’t think apprenticeships are only limited to specific sectors. Apprenticeships teach you lots of transferable skills, so you might find they open doors into a wider range of jobs than you think!
Click the button below to check out our National Apprenticeship Week 2022 playlist, with videos covering apprenticeships in a range of sectors, like engineering, manufacturing, health and social care, and even the RAF!
Careers Task: Watch the video with info on the sector that closest matches the kind of work you think you’d like to do in the future. What did the video tell you that you didn’t know before? Does this affect what education choices you think you might make?
Read these apprenticeship guides
On top of all the video resources above, we’ve also collated a few pdfs and other resources for you to enjoy. Check them out below.
Stockport Jobs Match
Stockport Jobs Match have produced their guide to NAW2023, with details on local college providers, employers offering apprenticeships, and a huge range of other info.
Check out their digital prospectus by clicking the button below.
The Hut Group
The Hut Group are based in Greater Manchester and offer over 30 apprenticeship programmes! They’ve produced this pdf with a range of posters with tips and info on apprenticeships, just for you to check out. Check it out below.
