Week 131: Higher & Degree Apprenticeship overview – things are hotting up, but are they levelling up?

Latest reflections

Sure enough, we have now begun to see some of the September 2023 programmes kicking in along with a couple with January 2023 starts too. And I’m happy to give a special heads-up to global consultancy and construction firm Mace, whose fifty new DA and HA vacancies all came with precise information on volume, locations, starting salaries, entry requirements, degree providers and occupational area. There are some other big employers who are equally transparent, but conversely there are also some for whom I can only make educated low estimates about the actual numbers of vacancies across different locations, based on my own past experience. In these situations I always err on the side of caution and then adjust my figures further down the line if more information is forthcoming.

It might just be me and my obsession with data, but a frustration I often feel is that the volume of annual vacancies with a few of the larger employers is sometimes quite hard to judge. I don’t know to what extent 6^th form and college students or fellow guidance practitioners might sometimes find this confusing too – are applicants competing for one vacancy, five, ten or fifty? I would be interested if any readers have a view on this.

Meanwhile, with the North West slightly lagging behind most other regions in recent months, it made a big comeback this week with Greater Manchester in particular scoring well with 46 new vacancies recorded. Hence, I’ve selected another of my photos of the city as this week’s featured image. In this context, readers might be interested in my brief comments about ‘levelling up’ that I’ve added as a footnote to my ‘Regional data’ section below.

Background

Since the first ‘lockdown’ started on Monday 23^rd March 2020, I’ve kept a record of new higher and degree apprenticeship vacancies posted in England and in doing so have built up an evolving occupational and regional analysis. I largely use data extracted daily from the government’s ‘Find an Apprenticeship’ website, whilst also keeping a close eye on other national vacancy sources including NHS Jobs, Not Going to Uni and Rate My Apprenticeship.

I collated similar data for a period of 70 weeks prior to the March 2020 lockdown and my weekly headline data compares the pre-lockdown and post-lockdown figures, using the two 70-week periods either side of lockdown as a benchmark.

My target audience is Level 3 school and college leavers and those who influence and advise them. Therefore, I only include vacancies at Levels 4 to 7 that ‘work-ready’ 18/19-year-olds seeking their first permanent role could reasonably apply for, whether at the point of leaving school/college or after a few months of temporary experience. If more than a year’s permanent experience is clearly required, I don’t normally include the vacancy in my figures.

I would emphasise the term ‘work-ready’ because academic qualifications alone will never be enough to compete successfully for a higher or degree apprenticeship. Whilst a UCAS points score of 112 is the most frequently-quoted minimum entry requirement for DAs (sometimes more and quite often less), it’s otherwise much more about the skills, qualities and insights you can bring.

My data will never be fully reliable because not all vacancies are advertised nationally in a way that also gives an indication of actual numbers and locations. However, the analyses that I’ve built up paint an intriguing picture of what’s out there in a changing post-18 career landscape. The figures also suggest that there’s something of a mismatch between supply and demand in terms of volume (there aren’t enough to go around), location (my regional breakdown raises questions about ‘levelling up’) and the range of occupations available (which probably doesn’t align too well with student aspirations).

One further and slightly confusing factor to take into account is that it’s quite normal for some 18/19-year-old school/college leavers to apply for lower level apprenticeships too, especially at Level 3. It’s also true that a proportion of DA and HA opportunities will be snapped up by older applicants or even graduates and therefore work-readiness really matters to enable 18/19-year-olds to compete successfully.

Headline data

In England during the latest period from 19^th to 25^th September 2022 I recorded:

104 new Degree Apprenticeship vacancies and
124 new Higher Apprenticeship vacancies

In the 131 weeks since the start of the first COVID-19 lockdown (23^rd March 2020 to 25^th September 2022) I’ve now recorded:

14,410 new Degree Apprenticeships (Levels 6/7) and
14,120 new Higher Apprenticeships (Levels 4/5)
giving a total of 28,530

Using the 70 weeks either side of the initial lockdown (on 23/3/20) as a benchmark, my latest comparative figures are as follows:

Weekly average in the 70 weeks before lockdown: 82 DAs + 71 HAs = 153 total
Weekly average in the 70 weeks after lockdown: 84 DAs + 75 HAs = 159 total
Weekly average in the 131 weeks since lockdown: 110 DAs + 108 HAs = 218 total

This shows that both DAs and HAs have more than fully recovered since the initial reductions in the early days of the pandemic. Whilst it’s fair to say that I’m being more thorough in the way I track down and monitor new vacancies than I was in pre-COVID days, I’ve definitely seen an upward trend in volume compared with how things looked two to three years ago. However, with the threat of recession looming, I’ll be keeping my eye very firmly on the ball in the coming weeks to see if there’s any sign of a slowdown.

Updated analysis by county and region

By county (loosely defined), the 28,530 higher and degree apprenticeships advertised in England since the start of lockdown have been distributed as follows:

Greater London (7,664)
Yorkshire (2,542)
West Midlands (1,692)
Greater Manchester (1,420)
Bristol & Gloucestershire (1,099)
Hampshire (967)
Berkshire (851)
Hertfordshire (716)
Surrey (619)
Nottinghamshire (583)
Tyne & Wear (532)
Sussex (528)
Cheshire (516)
Derbyshire (516)
Cambridgeshire (489)
Essex (481)
Warwickshire (465)
Lancashire (462)
Suffolk (435)
Merseyside (394)
Somerset & South Bristol (387)
Devon (373)
Staffordshire (361)
Wiltshire (338)
County Durham (333)
Buckinghamshire (325)
Kent (323)
Oxfordshire (321)
Leicestershire (320)
Bedfordshire (319)
Dorset (289)
Norfolk (278)
Northamptonshire (273)
Cornwall (272)
Cumbria (263)
Worcestershire (204)
Lincolnshire (201)
Shropshire (141)
Isle of Wight (44)
Northumberland (40)
Herefordshire (33)
Rutland (7)
Home working with no central base (33)
Not specified (81)

Regional data: The table below shows how those stats add up regionally in the context of the local 15-24 year-old population. The population figures have been extracted from the very latest ONS census data published in June 2022 and my analysis provides the following information:

First number in bold = the latest cumulative number of vacancies for each region
Big number in brackets = the resident population of 15 to 24-year-olds in the region using the new ONS data and rounded to the nearest 100
Third figure in bold indexes my apprenticeship figures against the 15 to 24-year-old population. The ‘index’ shows the combined number of DAs and HAs since March 2020 per 1,000 of that population and the regions are then ‘ranked’ accordingly:

7,664 London (1,078,600: 7.11)
2,777 South West (645,800: 4.30)
2,895 West Midlands (720,900: 4.02)
2,718 East of England (685,300: 3.97)
2,558 Yorkshire & Humber (670,800: 3.81)
3,959 South East (1,040,500: 3.80)
3,052 North West (884,600: 3.45)
1,851 East Midlands (593,700: 3.12)
942 North East (313,000: 3.01)
114 Not specified / Home working

28,530 Total England (6,633,200: 4.30)

Whilst my data is always going to have some flaws in it, the above comparisons nonetheless seem to me to raise some continuing questions about ‘levelling up’.

Updated occupational analysis

Each week I update my occupational analysis by breaking down the new vacancies into what I loosely define as ‘occupational areas’, which in some cases differ from the official apprenticeship standards terminology. Since the start of lockdown in March 2020, the complete lists of occupational areas represented in each category are given below. In my view, this provides a fascinating insight into what the emerging occupations are in a changing landscape.

Degree Apprenticeships (Levels 6/7):

In total there have been 14,410 new vacancies spread across 103 occupational areas and minimum starting salaries have ranged from £5,590 to £32,000pa. The occupational breakdown is as follows:

2,988 Police Constables

1,271 Digital Technology Solutions (general) *see below for details

1,239 Accountancy/Tax/Audit Professionals

725 Software Engineers/Developers

723 Chartered Managers (general)

584 Nurses (474 Adult, 86 Mental Health, 19 Learning Disability, 5 Child)

557 Civil Engineers

478 Chartered Quantity Surveyors

417 Data Scientists/Analysts/Engineers

402 Project Managers

362 Chartered Building/Property/Land Surveyors

278 Electrical/Electronic Engineers

272 Design & Development Engineers

266 Supply Chain Leaders

222 Food Technology/Production/Manufacturing Professionals

217 Digital Marketing Professionals

200 Cyber Security Professionals

183 Manufacturing Engineers

161 Nuclear Engineers/Scientists

161 Sales Professionals

149 Financial Services Professionals

137 Building Services Design Engineers

130 Laboratory Scientists

125 Solicitors

124 Professional Economists

119 Retail Leaders

113 Aerospace Engineers

109 Environmental Practitioners

104 Construction Managers

98 Healthcare Science Practitioners (13 Biomedical Science, 13 Cardiac Physiology, 11 Nuclear Medicine Technology, 10 Medical & Clinical Engineering, 10 Neurophysiology, 10 Respiratory Physiology & Sleep Science, 8 Radiation & Radiotherapy Engineering, 7 Radiation & Radiotherapy Physics, 6 Audiology, 5 Digital Healthcare Science, 3 Bioinformatics, 1 Rehabilitation Engineering, 1 Renal Specialist)

95 Network Engineers

77 Hospital Operating Department Practitioners

75 Railway/Rail Systems Engineers

73 Digital User Experience (UX) Design Professionals

67 Control Engineers

60 Non-Destructive Testing Engineers

47 Electro-Mechanical/Mechatronics Engineers

44 Radiographers (29 Diagnostic, 15 Therapeutic)

43 Chartered Managers (Hospitality)

43 Materials Scientists/Technologists/Engineers

40 Internal Audit Professionals

39 Town Planners

38 Manufacturing & Production Managers (non-food)

37 Occupational Therapists

36 Clinical Trials Specialists

36 Creative Digital Design Professionals

36 Podiatrists

36 Project Control Professionals

32 Broadcast/Media Systems Engineers

30 Recruitment Professionals

29 Social Workers

28 Building Control Surveyors

27 Business Analysts

27 Chemical Engineers

25 Packaging Professionals

24 Chartered Rural Surveyors

24 Environmental Health Officers

22 Transport Planners

20 Human Resources Professionals

19 Weapons Munitions & Explosives Engineers

17 Architectural Technologists

17 Journalists

16 Public Health Practitioners

15 Architectural Assistants

15 Geotechnical Engineers

15 Junior Traders (Global Financial Markets)

15 Professional Foresters

14 GIS / Geospatial Mapping & Surveying Professionals

14 Marketing Managers

12 Insurance Professionals

11 Physiotherapists

9 Business Managers (Social Change)

8 Agricultural/Horticultural Advisers

8 Gas Transmission Engineers

8 Propulsion Engineers

6 Actuarial Professionals

6 Sport Development Officers

5 Chartered Legal Executives

5 Fire Safety Engineers

5 Operations Analysts

4 Assistant Teachers / Learning Coaches

4 Compliance & Risk Specialists

4 Speech & Language Therapists

3 Building Information Modelling (BIM) Specialists

3 Buying & Procurement Professionals

3 Digital Transformation Engineers

3 Fitness/Leisure Centre Managers

3 TV Production Managers

2 Education Technology Specialists

2 Midwives

2 Pensions Professionals

2 Tax Technologists

1 Brewer

1 Charity Manager

1 Community Centre Manager

1 Events Manager

1 Facilities Manager

1 Human Performance Engineer

1 Investment Banking Specialist

1 Lighting Designer

1 Marine Engineer

1 Population Health Intelligence Analyst

1 Prosthetist & Orthotist

*Digital Technology Solutions (general) has encompassed or led to the following range of specialisms:

Software Engineer, Software Developer, Software Tester, Network Engineer, Data Scientist, Data Analyst, Global Data Analyst, Data Architect, Network Architect, Enterprise Architect, Cyber Security Specialist, IT Consultant, Solutions Consultant, Software Implementation Consultant, Software Consultant, Technical/Tech Consultant, Functional Consultant, Project Manager, Project Co-ordinator, Business Intelligence Specialist, Business Systems Engineer/Developer, Automation Developer, Automation Test Developer, Full Stack Developer, Digital Developer, Digital Solutions Architect, Technology Architect, Technology Manager, Innovation Technologist, Innovation Design Analyst, Agile Analyst, Applications Support Analyst, Technical Support Analyst, Business Analyst, Global Mobility Analyst, Content Analyst, Security Operations Analyst, Process Mining Analyst, SAP Analyst, User Experience Researcher, Junior Product Manager, Infrastructure Specialist, FinTech Specialist, DevOps Engineer, Solutions Engineer, Digital Solutions Engineer, Systems Engineer, Automation Engineer, IT Support Engineer, Service Desk Engineer, Cloud Engineer, Quality Assurance Engineer, Sales Engineer, Sales Account Manager, Sales Operations Manager, Scientific Computing Specialist, Platform Manager, Service Manager, Engineering Information Manager, Amazon Web Services Specialist, Supervisory Control & Data Acquisition Specialist, Fixed Telecoms Specialist, Operations Support Analyst, Support Desk Analyst, IT Support Analyst, IT Service Desk Analyst, IT/Computing Technician, 2^nd Line Support Technician, WordPress Developer, Technology Operations & Service Delivery Specialist, Digital Manufacturing Engineer, Electronic Systems Design & Development Engineer, Solution Engineering & Development Specialist, Client Delivery Specialist, Client Success Specialist, Client Consultant, Operations Resilience & Change Specialist, Microsoft 365 Product Specialist, Innovation Foundry Specialist, Continuous Improvement & Automation Specialist and Railway Signalling Control Systems Specialist.

That’s some list and it keeps growing.

Higher Apprenticeships (Levels 4/5):

In total there have been 14,120 new vacancies spread across 135 occupational areas and minimum starting salaries have ranged from £5,002 to £35,000pa. The occupational breakdown is as follows:

1,380 Sales Executives

1,087 Software Developers

1,016 Data Analysts

994 Project Management Associates

931 Trainee Accountants / Accounting Technicians

581 School/Community Sports Coaches

413 Nursing Associates

395 Manufacturing Engineering Technicians

392 Construction Site Supervisors

380 Business Analysts

337 Network Engineers

332 Taxation Technicians

285 Software Testers

276 Quantity Surveying Technicians

253 Public Relations & Communications Assistants

245 Cyber Security Technologists

235 Commercial Procurement & Supply Practitioners

234 Retail Assistant Managers

229 Civil/Site Engineering Technicians

199 Building Services Engineering Technicians

194 Children/Youth/Family Practitioners

186 Buying & Merchandising Specialists

181 Technician Scientists

175 Electrical/Electronic Engineering Technicians

171 Policy Officers (Central/Local Government)

156 Insurance Practitioners

154 Investment Operations Specialists

150 Reablement Associate Practitioners (NHS)

139 Marketing Executives

131 Associate Ambulance Practitioners

126 DevOps Engineers

118 Regulatory Compliance Officers

114 Early Years Lead Practitioners

96 Junior Management Consultants

86 Construction Design & Build Technicians

82 Healthcare Science Associates (22 Audiology & Hearing Aid Dispensers, 15 Bio/Medical Engineering Technicians, 15 Cardiorespiratory & Sleep Physiology, 8 MRI Radiography, 6 Genetics Technology, 4 Mammography, 4 Speech Therapy, 2 Medical Physics, 2 Phlebotomy, 1 Biochemistry, 1 Neurophysiology, 1 Rehabilitation Engineering, 1 Tissue Retrieval)

78 Human Resources Specialists

77 Food Technology/Engineering/Production Technicians

77 Nuclear Technicians

74 Quality Practitioners

73 Mineral Products Technicians

70 Recruitment Resourcers/Consultants

61 Financial Advisers/Paraplanners

55 Healthcare Associate Practitioners (general/unspecified)

50 Internal Audit Practitioners

47 Actuarial Technicians

47 Corporate Responsibility & Sustainability Practitioners

47 Hospitality Managers

46 Adult Social Care Lead Practitioners

46 Vehicle Damage Assessors

39 Automotive Engineering/Propulsion Technicians

39 Brewers

38 Intelligence Analysts

34 Journalists

34 Revenue & Welfare Benefits Officers

34 TV/Media Production Co-ordinators

33 Business Improvement Practitioners

32 Automation & Control Engineers

32 Learning/Skills & Development Practitioners

31 Dairy Technologists

29 Railway Engineering Technicians

26 Ordnance Munitions & Explosives Technicians

24 Operations Managers

21 Estate Agency Negotiators

21 Housing/Property/Lettings Managers

18 Market Research Executives

15 Fibre Cable Engineers

15 Smart Energy Engineers

14 Countryside Rangers

14 Police Community Support Officers

12 Broadcast & Media Systems Technicians

12 Engineer Surveyors

12 Land Referencers

12 Paralegals

11 Digital Community Managers

11 Hygiene Specialists

10 Football Coaches

10 Information Managers

9 Naval Architects / Marine Engineering Technicians

9 Railway/Passenger Transport Operations Managers

8 Acoustics Technicians

8 Emergency Medical Technicians

8 Employability Practitioners

8 Film/TV Post-Production Technical Operators

7 Computer Games Developers

7 Counter Fraud Investigators

6 Facilities Managers

6 Fire Safety Inspectors

6 School Business Professionals

5 Antisocial Behaviour & Community Safety Officers

5 Architectural Technicians

5 BEMS Control Engineers (Building Energy Management Systems)

5 Rehabilitation Officers (Visual Impairment)

5 Visual Merchandisers

4 Aircraft Certifying Technicians

4 Gymnastics/Trampoline Coaches / Rebound Therapists

4 Unified Communications Trouble Shooters

3 Applications Support Leads

3 Dental Technicians

3 Fashion & Textiles Technologists

3 Pensions Administrators

3 Port Marine Operations Officers

3 Senior Culinary Chefs

3 Space Engineering Technicians

3 Sports Development Officers

3 Town Planning Assistants

3 Utilities Technicians

2 Arboriculturists

2 Auctioneers

2 Building Information Modelling (BIM) Technicians

2 Early Intervention Practitioners

2 Historic Site Advisers

2 Music Recording Technicians

2 Tax Technology Technicians

2 VFX Artists

2 Water Recycling Engineers

1 Chaplain

1 Chemical Process Technician

1 Clinical Coder

1 Community Energy Specialist

1 Cultural Heritage Conservation Technician

1 Customs & Foreign Exchange Expert

1 Digital Accessibility Specialist

1 Fitness Club Manager

1 Fitness Instructor

1 Health Informatics Specialist

1 Horticultural / Landscape Design Practitioner

1 Lighting Designer

1 Metrology Technician

1 Padel Coach

1 Payroll Assistant Manager

1 Tennis Coach

1 Travel Agent

1 Wedding Accessories Designer

1 Wedding Venue Co-ordinator

Going forward

All being well I will continue posting frequent updates, usually on Sunday nights.

As from 1^st June I have also started to track Degree and Higher Apprenticeships in Wales and Northern Ireland and Level 6/7 apprenticeships in Scotland. I’ve always been very conscious that my blog only covers England and I intend to redress this with occasional reports starting as soon as I have enough data to give it some validity.

https://alanbullockcareers.com/