So much for apprenticeships !

I also think you need to hang on until after Christmas when more will come up. Ds is in his last year of an apprenticeship and we trawled the government site for them. Try get some voluntary work on the cv as it helped my son. With regards to IT apprenticeship try Banks and Building Society’s?

Level 2 are equivalent to GCSE’s and are aimed at students who may have got grades 3’s or 4’s. For those who have struggled to get these grades, there are traineeships, which prepare young people for an apprenticeship. There are loads of level 2 apprenticeships on offer, but you need to think of them in the same way as applying for a normal job. An apprenticeship is a job with training. 20% is off the job, so usually day release at college.

The apprenticeships at level 6 (degree) offer less opportunities than at level 2 and are incredibly sought after and highly competitive. Don’t even worry about these ones.

The best time to look for and apply for any apprenticeship is from about 6 months before the end of the school/college year.

If you google ‘find an apprenticeship’ you will get the main government apprenticeship website. I have just done a search for all level 2 apprenticeships within 5 miles of Manchester and there are 183, which is really good for this time of year.

www.findapprenticeship.service.gov.uk/apprenticeships?ApprenticeshipLevel=Intermediate&Hash=0&Latitude=53.48297&Longitude=-2.2501&Location=Manchester%20%28Greater%20Manchester%29&LocationType=NonNational&PageNumber=1&ResultsPerPage=5&SearchAction=Search&SearchField=All&SearchMode=Keyword&SortType=Relevancy&WithinDistance=5&DisabilityConfidentOnly=False

They range from accounts, admin, hospitality, recruitment, pharmacy etc.

The civil service is recruiting apprentices (Home Office), multiple locations. 165 jobs, Level 3, but there’s a lot of opportunity to progress / be promoted. You get 1 day per week to focus on your apprenticeship and the other 4 working in teams. Here’s the link for anyone interested. Good pension too. One of our agency staff asked me today could she opt out of the pension if she gets one of the jobs, I strongly advised her against that, guess in your 20’s you think that’s years away but she will be glad one day for paying into it!

www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/jobs.cgi?jcode=1751138&csource=csalerts&fbclid=IwAR1nc_YTVH4jfrslBdvFYsCAYW6myt8ERjv2iKxd1wXvFHDuMLpzVpGkTPg

This is really worrying. Ds who has SEN is currently n the second year of a Btec in music but is really struggling with the written part of the course. He wants to go to uni/music college but I have serious doubts as to whether he would be able to complete a degree.

Apprentiships used to be seen as a viable alternative for practical, non academic young people, now it appears there is nothing but the scrap heap for them.

@Oblomov21 Ds1 is trying to get on an Accountancy Apprenticeship. I realised a long time ago that they were the crème and the top calibre candidates who don't get on them, now go to the top unis, as a second choice!

I think it really depends on which apprenticeships you're applying to and where (in our area we still have unfilled good level 3 IT ones for example).
Obviously pwc degree apprenticeships etc using Russell group or similar unis are more competitive than a level 4 at a local uni. Both are useful depending on what you want to do.

Ds1 is trying to get on an Accountancy Apprenticeship. I realised a long time ago that they were the crème and the top calibre candidates who don't get on them, now go to the top unis, as a second choice!

I thought the institute of apprenticeships was just another Tory self-serving quango.

These schemes sign you up with promises. But you need to find your own apprenticeship place

Apprenticeships are supposed to be a sensible alternative to university

(and sixth form study)

The government keeps talking about all the feckless 18 year olds not doing STEM subjects at university. Well if they want more kids to do apprenticeships they need to sort the situation out. And it's not helped by people saying they are elitest and how dare the plebs remotely aspire to them.

I advertise the majority of our apprenticeships in March. It catches students perfectly who are coming up to their last few months in school and college.

I work for a council and we've had 9 apprenticeships advertised over the last few months and barely had an application. We have a number of IT ones. I guess it must depend where you are.

@Stasiland thanks. I’m happy to be out of it tbh. I really didn’t like how the Government changed them or how my then employer operated. Much happier now! Personally, I think your son’s done the right thing! Good luck to him!

I’m a former apprenticeships tutor who has been laid off due to the lack of apprenticeships available. I worked for the biggest provider in our area and we picked up a few apprentices from the smaller local providers who went bust - but still, not enough vacancies out there.

Lots of office workers are still working from home so they're not physically able to support apprentices at the moment because they generally need to be supervised in person.

Degree level apprenticeships, where you work / get paid and study for a degree alongside your work are pretty popular and have the pick of candidates.

https://careers.sky.com/earlycareers/apprenticeships/

@Orangejuicemarathoner totally agree with your comment. My DD has just started her A levels, she is also considering degree apprenticeship vs uni option and based on our research, the application process, selection etc is far more difficult than being accepted to a uni, as the companies are investing heavily on the students and they want to have the ones who are on the top of their games

[quote Stasiland]**@Orangejuicemarathoner* I don't think I'm misunderstanding anything tbf. My complaint concerned the dearth of any* apprenticeships. My son was aiming for level 3 or 4 apprenticeships not the very competitive degree ones. What at one time would have been basic entry level IT jobs so first level support desk types ideal for a tech savvy school leaver. As I said in the first post he didn't want to do a degree or go to uni. He's dyslexic so he felt a full blown academic degree wouldn't be ideal. The IT support type apprenticeships were asking for 5 Gcses at most so not for high flying candidates. He has 3 A'levels and 10 Gcses so is fairly intelligent.[/quote]
I wasn't implying he wasn't intelligent, I was just pointing out that a decent apprenticeship is more academic and harder to get on to than a university course. Apprenticeships are not an alternative for people who are not academic enough to get into university. It is the other way around. Universities are for people who can't get apprenticeships

I run a wide range of apprenticeship programmes at work - engineering, quantity surveying and IT. They are in high demand and I can receive 100 applications for each one.

The best time to look for an apprenticeship role is November through to March each year. There are not many decent roles advertised at this time of the year.

I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding here. Decent apprenticeships are pretty elite. They are not something you "decide you want" - rather something that you hope for and aim for, with a back up plan for insurance.

Generally we get our top students onto apprenticeships, and the rest go to uni.

Am finding the same thing. No response to emails, constant rejection. That doesn't seem to bother him, but I think it's poor.