Sigta Apprentice Joe Patching is seen here with Darryl Kingshott of Sigta in this screen grab from Linkedin.

Today we are working with Hailsham Community College helping deliver a careers fair to promote apprenticeships. Using a live chatroom, we can answer any questions and give careers advice to students on the many business and technical apprenticeships that we offer.

There has never been a better time to employ an apprentice – new incentive from April 2021.

Incentive grants for apprenticeships extended by six months 

Incentive grants for apprenticeships will rise to £3,000, with £126m allocated for traineeships. 

“The government has been clear that investment in infrastructure, skills, and innovation are key priorities, and the recently announced £126m boost for traineeships is to be clearly welcomed,” said Adrian Overall, CEO, CloudStratex. 

“Yet the Chancellor needs to pay specific attention to the fact that we are in the midst of a new era, which is characterised by astonishing advances in technology that are redefining how we live in the 21st Century. While tech is eliminating the need for some jobs, it is also creating a whole sleugh of new technical and digital specialisms that are essential for the UK’s future competitiveness. 

“Unfortunately, 11.7 million people lack even the essential digital skills” needed just for day-to-day life online, according to Ipsos MORI. This is of great concern to UK plc and clearly needs to be addressed if we are to turbocharge Britain 2.0. 

“That means specifically prioritising the uptake of digital skills by encouraging people from all backgrounds and age groups to pursue tech careers: a good place to start is by addressing the acute shortage of STEM subject teachers. We also need to place greater emphasis on ensuring equity in education.  

“Finally, we must ensure students are committing to STEM subjects at an advance level. For example, 50% of girls take GCSE physics, yet only 22% of A level physics entrants are female. Figures such as this must change if we are to ensure a genuinely fair society.” 

There’s light up ahead – Goodbye trackies, hello world!

We will be working with schools over National Careers Week promoting technical and administration apprenticeships through virtual events.

Some good news here for the people contacting us in search of an apprenticeship. Last March saw things slow down dramatically but now we are starting to see Companies starting to recruit again with new technical apprenticeship vacancies confirmed last week.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56149661

It’s been busy! We have featured many former and current apprentices who have sent us some great photos and shared their stories with us. The apprenticeship is such a great springboard into other roles. I am often contacted by Companies that we have not dealt with before who are looking to employ an apprentice. When I ask how they know about Sigta I am often told ‘I was a Sigta apprentice’. This can be coming from a Technical Director, MD or Company owner. We want to thank all of the people who have contributed this week and told us about their journeys. We wish them all a successful future.

Dave Underwood

To read their stories go to our apprenticeships page and scroll down to ‘success stories’ and ‘apprenticeship stories’

Four apprentices now in training at Kurt J Lesker of Hastings on Sigta programmes. Fantastic to see this great Company training our future engineers.

National Apprenticeship Week – Celebrating Our Team

Sigta apprentice Dom Groom has recently completed his Business Administrator apprenticeship achieving a Level 3 pass with Distinction. Congratulations from the team at Sigta Dom!