Introduction

Following on from my regular reports on higher and degree apprenticeship vacancies in England, here’s my first report on Scotland. Whilst I’ve worked with a few private clients there, I’m not closely familiar with the Scottish educational system or ‘culture’. However, I’ve found it intriguing to build this picture based on exactly six months of monitoring new vacancies and I’m keen to hear if colleagues find the report helpful or flawed in any ways.

The format I’ve used is based on the one I use for England, but it’s much more compact and also has several new improved features. If it attracts any interest, then I hope to publish updates at the end of each month and possibly to add a visual element to the data in future in association with a colleague. I’m also working on Wales and, hopefully, Northern Ireland too in due course.

My featured image is a photo I took on a cold winter’s day in Edinburgh a few years ago.     

Background

Since 1^st June 2022 I’ve kept a record of all new Graduate Apprenticeship vacancies in Scotland, along with any other UK-wide apprenticeships of an equivalent level that have vacancies in Scotland. In doing so I have also built up an evolving occupational and regional analysis. I largely use data extracted weekly from the Skills Development Scotland (apprenticeships.scot) website whilst also keeping a close lookout for vacancies in Scotland through my normal UK-wide channels.

The processes I use are based on the methods I’ve developed since I started recording degree and higher apprenticeship vacancies in England. My target audience at this stage is just fellow professionals who work with young people in Scotland, who are most welcome to share the report with clients if it’s likely to be of interest.

I would emphasise that my data will never be fully reliable for a variety of reasons and especially because I have also sought to include vacancies with UK-wide employers. In some of these cases I’ve made educated and conservative estimates of numbers, whereas the data I’ve collated from apprenticeships.scot should be very accurate.

My thinking behind it, and the reason why I started collecting data for Scotland in the first place (and also, separately, for Wales and Northern Ireland) is this: if I was a guidance professional based in the country how could I give clients a sense of the range and volume of degree-level apprenticeships open to them if they were looking for an alternative to the full-time university route?   

Headline data

In the 6-month period from 1^st June to 30^th November I recorded:

• 326 new apprenticeship vacancies in Scotland at Level 10 or equivalent 

Occupational analysis

I’ve broken the new vacancies down into what I loosely define as ‘occupational areas’, which in some cases differ from official terminology. Since 1^st June 2022 the complete list of occupational areas represented is given below. In my view, this provides an interesting insight into what the emerging occupations are in a changing career landscape.

In total there have been 326 new vacancies spread across 21 occupational sectors:

    65 Accountants / Audit Specialists   

    56 Software Engineers/Developers     

    37 Tax Specialists        

    32 Business Managers

    24 Data Scientists/Analysts   

    18 Design & Manufacturing Engineers

    16 Civil Engineers      

    16 Digital Technology Solutions Generalists

    12 Construction Project/Site Managers

    11 Cyber Security Professionals

    11 Quantity Surveyors

      7 IT Business Managers (ITMB)

      5 Electrical Power Engineers

      4 Chartered Building/Property Surveyors

      3 Project Support Professionals

      2 Architectural Engineers

      2 Food Manufacturing Managers

      2 Media Systems Engineers

      1 Control Engineer

      1 Business Development (Sales/Marketing) Manager

      1 User Experience (UX) Designer

Analysis by town/city

The 326 apprenticeships advertised in Scotland during this period have been distributed as follows:

• 136 Glasgow
•   84 Edinburgh
•   32 Aberdeen
•   12 Irvine (North Ayrshire)
•     9 Livingston (West Lothian)
•     4 Dundee
•     4 Tweedbank (Scottish Borders)
•     3 Bellshill (North Lanarkshire)
•     3 Cumbernauld (North Lanarkshire)
•     3 Glenrothes (Fife)
•     3 Inverness (Highland)
•     3 Lerwick (Shetland)
•     3 Motherwell (North Lanarkshire)
•     2 Currie (Edinburgh)
•     2 Newbridge (Edinburgh)
•     2 Perth  
•     2 St Andrews (Fife)
•     2 Stirling
•     2 Turriff (Aberdeenshire)    
•     2 Uddingston (North Lanarkshire)
•     1 Arbroath (Angus)
•     1 Beith (North Ayrshire)
•     1 Brechin (Angus)
•     1 Dingwall (Highland)
•     1 Dunfermline (Fife)
•     1 Golspie (Highland)
•     1 Grangemouth (Falkirk)
•     1 Helensburgh (Argyll & Bute)
•     1 Inverkeithing (Fife)
•     1 Loanhead (Midlothian)
•     1 Lochgilphead (Argyll & Bute)
•     1 Paisley (Renfrewshire)
•     1 Home-based

University partners

This is a list of universities who have partnered with employers in the delivery of the apprenticeships listed above, where this is known:

• 57 Glasgow Caledonian
• 53 Strathclyde
• 37 Heriot-Watt
• 26 Edinburgh Napier
• 19 BPP
• 10 Glasgow 
• 10 Robert Gordon
•   3 Highlands & Islands
•   2 Dundee
•   2 Stirling
•   2 West of Scotland
•   1 University College of Estate Management

Minimum entry requirements

This is a simplified list of stated minimum entry requirements (where known), expressed as either Scottish Higher grades or UCAS points, and the number of apprenticeship vacancies requiring them:

• 128   BBBB
•   43   112 points
•   36   104 points
•     9   BBBC    
•     8   120 points
•     7   AAAB
•     7   CCC
•     5   ABBB
•     5   BBBBC   
•     5   BB
•     4   BBCC
•     3   AABB   
•     3   BBDD
•     3   BBC   
•     3   CCCC
•     2   AAAB/ABBBB
•     2   BBB   
•     1   126 points
•     1   BBDD
•     1   DDDD

Minimum starting salaries

In this table I’ve listed the aggregated minimum starting salaries for all vacancies for which this information was available. (£23,000+ denotes a minimum starting salary of between £23,000 and £23,999 and so on.)

•    1   £26,000
•  10   £25,000
•    2   £23,000+
•  20   £22,000  
•  54   £21,000+
•  59   £20,000+
•  36   £19,000+
•  30   £18,000+
•    6   £17,000+
•    9   £16,000+
•    6   £15,000+
•  16   £14,000+
•    3   £12,000+
•    1   £11,000+

Going forward

If there’s any interest, then it’s my intention is to provide an updated Scotland report at the end of every month, all being well.

© Alan Bullock Careers, 2/12/2022

https://alanbullockcareers.com