National Apprenticeship Week 2025: 'Skills for Life' video transcript and audio description

It's great to be here at the University of Derby  

today celebrating National  apprenticeship week for 2023.

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The theme this year is skills for  life and we've got so many students  

here from local schools looking  for apprenticeship opportunities.

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So apprenticeships are important because they  help people get a hands-on experience of what it's like to work. There's a lot of help  and support available for people whilst doing an apprenticeship, you're basically  being paid to learn.

The benefit from our point of view as a business is that you can really get your future employees at that early stage and help shape and mould them as they come through so by the time they finish their apprenticeship, and in most  of our cases, come on to full-time employment, they're already ready to hit the road and  grow with your company. The real benefit is when they're in learning and they've  got all the other staff to help bounce ideas and upskill them so apprenticeships in my point of view, win on so many levels.

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That's how you make good connections. You  definitely get a lot more experience than any other options as well as obviously getting paid to do your degree so you get the degree funded for you. You also get paid while you're there and you  get hands-on experience at the job. The experience you get is overvalued I'd say to the education but you still get the education alongside it. If there's a lot of people who are constantly trying to help, if there are any questions you're always told a variety of people who can  help you out.

My apprenticeship that I'm on now,  

it gave me hands-on experience in the working  environment, you get paid while you learn and there's plenty of opportunity for development and just look into different areas of the business.

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I've chosen to do an apprenticeship because I preferred working in employment rather than just a full-time course but then I was working as well as doing the course at the same time so it was like  kind of beneficial in both ways.

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