Reflections on Level 10 Graduate Apprenticeships in Scotland: 1/6/2022 to 31/1/2023

Introduction

Following on from my weekly reports about degree and higher apprenticeship vacancies in England and my first report on Scotland published in December 2022, here’s my second Scotland summary reflecting on eight months of activity. A further 109 new vacancies have been added in the past two months along with six new locations. Glasgow has continued to have the edge over Edinburgh as the most prominent location and it’s got me thinking that a visit to the city is long overdue. In the meantime I’m especially grateful to my colleague Theresa for sending the photo of the Clyde Arc, aka the Squinty Bridge, that I’ve used as my featured image.

Background

Since 1^st June 2022 I’ve kept a record of new Graduate Apprenticeship vacancies in Scotland, along with other UK-wide apprenticeships of an equivalent level that have vacancies in Scotland. In doing so I have built up an evolving occupational and regional analysis. I largely use information from the Skills Development Scotland (apprenticeships.scot) website whilst also keeping a close lookout for relevant vacancies 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 is fellow professionals working 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 accurate.

The 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 were a guidance practitioner based in Scotland, how would 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 8-month period from 1^st June 2022 to 31^st January I recorded:

436 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 436 new vacancies spread across 25 occupational sectors:

99 Accountants / Audit Specialists

67 Software Engineers/Developers

49 Tax Specialists

34 Civil Engineers

32 Business Managers

27 Data Scientists/Analysts

23 Design & Manufacturing Engineers

17 Quantity Surveyors

16 Digital Technology Solutions Generalists

12 Construction Project/Site Managers

12 Cyber Security Professionals

12 IT Business Managers (ITMB)

11 Retail Leaders

5 Electrical Power Engineers

4 Chartered Building/Property Surveyors

3 Project Managers

2 Architectural Engineers

2 Food Manufacturing Managers

2 Media Systems Engineers

2 Nuclear Engineers

1 Building Services Engineer

1 Business Development (Sales/Marketing) Manager

1 Control Engineer

1 Digital User Experience (UX) Designer

1 Supply Chain Leader

Analysis by town/city

The 436 apprenticeships advertised in Scotland during this period have been distributed as follows (with council area in brackets):

197 Glasgow (City of Glasgow)
103 Edinburgh (City of Edinburgh)
43 Aberdeen (Aberdeenshire)
12 Irvine (North Ayrshire)
8 Inverness (Highland)
7 Motherwell (North Lanarkshire)
6 Livingston (West Lothian)
4 Dundee (City of Dundee)
4 Glenrothes (Fife)
4 Tweedbank (Scottish Borders)
3 Bellshill (North Lanarkshire)
3 Bridge of Weir (Renfrewshire)
3 Cumbernauld (North Lanarkshire)
3 Lerwick (Shetland Islands)
3 Rosyth (Fife)
2 Currie (Edinburgh)
2 Falkirk (Falkirk)
2 Helensburgh (Argyll & Bute)
2 Newbridge (City of Edinburgh)
2 Perth (Perth & Kinross)
2 St Andrews (Fife)
2 Stirling (Stirling)
2 Turriff (Aberdeenshire)
2 Uddingston (South Lanarkshire)
1 Arbroath (Angus)
1 Beith (North Ayrshire)
1 Brechin (Angus)
1 Cambuslang (South Lanarkshire)
1 Dingwall (Highland)
1 Dunfermline (Fife)
1 Golspie (Highland)
1 Grangemouth (Falkirk)
1 Holytown (North Lanarkshire)
1 Inverkeithing (Fife)
1 Loanhead (Midlothian)
1 Lochgilphead (Argyll & Bute)
1 Montrose (Angus)
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 was known:

83 Strathclyde
69 Glasgow Caledonian
42 Heriot-Watt
26 Edinburgh Napier
19 BPP
16 Glasgow
10 Robert Gordon
4 Highlands & Islands
4 Dundee
4 Stirling
2 National College for Nuclear (Somerset)
2 West of Scotland
1 Coventry
1 Sheffield Hallam
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:

176 BBBB
47 112 points
36 104 points
28 120 points
12 CCCC
10 BBBC
10 CCC
8 ABBB
7 AAAB
7 BBCC
7 BB
5 BBBBC
3 AAAB/ABBBB
3 AABB
3 BBB
3 BBC
2 96 points
1 128 points
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. (£20,000+ denotes a minimum starting salary of between £20,000 and £20,999 and so on.)