5 common misconceptions about apprenticeships
Apprenticeships get a bad rep, I work as a software engineer in Belfast, and in this article I look at my life as an apprentice to get past the misconceptions people have about my career path (along with some stats to prove that my good experience isn’t the only one). If you’ve ever talked to someone about applying for an apprenticeship you’ve probably heard these already …..
1. Apprentices just get coffee and tea all day.
A lot of people assume that being an apprentice means you’ll not have any real work to do, you’ll be making tea and coffee for the ‘real staff’. I certainly experienced this when I told my friends who were off to university, that I had decided to do an apprenticeship instead. They looked at me like I’d thrown the next 4 years of my life away.
Some of them asked me: “But they won’t put you on a real project, will they?” and some said: “You’d get more experience by going to Uni and doing your placement year in an IT company”. But they couldn’t have been more wrong. Since September I’ve worked on three individual projects already, one of which I got to manage myself. After all, why would employers want to pay you and put you through your education, if you weren’t going to do any real work for them?
I’m pretty confident that after 4 years I’ll be more experienced than those doing full-time degrees, I think apprentices have a huge advantage here; and I know I’m not the only one — in 2017, 92% of apprentices said their career prospects had improved, that doesn’t exactly sound like they were making tea all day!
2. Apprenticeships are for people who didn’t do well in school
The most common misconception about apprenticeships is probably the idea that they’re for people who weren’t able to go the university. People assume that if you’re intelligent, then you’ll go to university after school. After all, you’d have to be crazy not to want to live in tiny student halls, eating super noodles and racking up student debt, right?
People also assume that almost any other educational route means that you either don’t care about having a successful career or you just weren’t good enough to get into a degree course in the first place. Nowadays, this couldn’t be further from the truth. While the requirements for many apprenticeships are lower than some degree courses, it doesn’t mean that applicants are expected to be less qualified than those applying for university. In many cases, very academic people end up doing apprenticeships to get a head start in their career.
Obviously — I fancied the idea of a free degree and not working in a phone shop for the next four years, but I also thought, “if I want to work in IT, why not start as soon as possible?”
3. Apprentices won’t get a lot of money, if they get paid at all!
Quite often when people hear the word ‘apprenticeship’ they hear ‘cheap labour’, in reality, the UK has a minimum wage for apprentices, with many employers choosing to pay more than this. In fact, earlier this year the UK government actually launched a ‘crackdown’ on any unpaid internships in the UK as they aren’t legal.
Most employers (including my own) also offer opportunities for promotions, and on top of this, graduates will be entering into an industry with £1000s of student debt already! I’m not too jealous about that.
Earning prospects as an apprentice are unfairly seen as being limited, but right now I’m living with the same income I would be if I had student loans and a part-time job combined, and it can really only get better from here because I have the opportunity for promotions over the next 4 years (with the added bonus of not having to work a pushy, phone sales job on the weekend).
4. Apprenticeships only lead to trades job with low earning prospects
Many people assume that you can only find apprenticeships for trade work such as construction or hairdressing etc. Trade jobs are highly in demand right now, and often have a pretty great earning potential, but in case they don’t interest you, there are plenty of apprenticeships available in other sectors.
My apprenticeship is in a digital technologies company, where I work as a software engineer, a job that most people assume you need a computing degree for, but I’m actually studying for my degree alongside working 4 days a week. So in case you were wondering… YES! — You can still get a degree if you do an apprenticeship.
Now for some facts! — There were over 1,670 degree level apprenticeships started in the UK from 2016 to 2017, these included job roles ranging from legal services to banking and engineering. These qualifications will be nationally recognised and after getting your degree you’ll not only have the same qualifications as full-time degree graduates, but you’ll also have years of experience under your belt.
The likelihood is that after 4 years in industry, an apprentice (who may have graduated by then) will be at a higher salary than the starting salary for graduates in that industry. So I know I’ll be better off in 4 years, than someone who spent the same amount of time at uni, probably working weekends, and relying on student loans to cover their fees, because I will have spent all that time building my career!
5. Apprentices aren’t treated as ‘proper employees’
While it is true that the work schedule of an apprentice maybe slightly different to other staff due to study time, apprentices are still very much employees. They have access to most full-time employee benefits such as paid holiday and sick leave. In my job, I’m also entitled to an allowance for training, health benefits, and even travel opportunities. My last job didn’t even give me time off during my A-levels!
A lot of people might assume that apprentices don’t do real or valuable work, and so they not going to be respected, but employers said that apprentices have a real impact on their business and that they improved their service. If you think that apprentices aren’t ‘proper employees’ you’d be mistaken, companies want to hire people who are willing to work hard and who have pride in their job, just like any other employee. Otherwise, what’s in it for them?
My only fear was not fitting in with people who weren’t also apprentices, I wasn’t sure if ‘proper employees’ would want to be working with a 19-year-old. But everyone I’ve had the opportunity to work with has been really nice and super helpful, and sometimes it’s easy to forget that I’m the same age as first-year students because I feel more like a software developer than a student now.
The bottom line is that apprenticeships offer businesses the perfect opportunity to train their staff to be the best from the very beginning, and they offer individuals a head-start in their career — so it’s pretty much a win-win situation.
An apprenticeship is an awesome way to start your career, and these 5 misconceptions shouldn't stop you from applying for one!
For more info on apprenticeships (in the UK, at least) you can read the government’s research report, for all those fun facts that I used to back up my personal experience of being an apprentice.
