Headline news and latest reflections Whilst slightly down on last week’s numbers, Week 45 nonetheless saw yet another improvement in the comparison between my pre- and post-lockdown data. Across the week, 174 new vacancies were posted that would be open to applications from school and college leavers, 120 of them DAs and 54 of them … Continue reading 45 weeks after the start of ‘Lockdown 1’: more positive news about the impact of COVID-19 on Higher & Degree Apprenticeship vacancies in England

Headline news and latest reflections I’m happy to say that the positive upward trend has resumed and the post-coronavirus reduction in vacancies has narrowed even more to a record 19.3%. It’s cheering news and, with this being the 34th in my series of blogs on the same topic, it has got to a stage where … Continue reading 44 weeks after the start of ‘Lockdown 1’: good news about the impact of COVID-19 on Higher & Degree Apprenticeship vacancies in England

To help counteract the lack of opportunity to physically attend open days and other on-campus activities, universities everywhere are laying on an explosion of new initiatives.   None more so than Aberystwyth, from where my Welsh correspondent has updated me with a list of mouth-watering webinars that kick-off next week and run through to late-March. … Continue reading More upcoming webinars from Aberystwyth University

Headline news and latest reflections The new year has started steadily, and I think I would happily settle for that in the current circumstances. Degree apprenticeships have been slow to pick up again, but my Week 43 data was boosted by some extra numbers from vacancies posted in December that I’ve learned about through my … Continue reading 43 weeks after the start of ‘Lockdown 1’: update on the impact of COVID-19 on Higher & Degree Apprenticeship vacancies in England

Headline news It was back in mid-May 2020, eight weeks after the first lockdown officially started, that I began posting this series of blogs. Today’s is the 33rd in the series. In those first eight disastrous weeks the number of new HA and DA vacancies was 77% down on the pre-lockdown figure and it continued to … Continue reading 42 weeks after the start of ‘Lockdown 1’: update on the impact of COVID-19 on Higher & Degree Apprenticeship vacancies in England

Headline news Contrary to the assumption I made after Week 39, when I confidently predicted that new vacancies would surely dry up in Christmas week, to my amazement they didn’t. A further 178 new higher and degree apprenticeships were posted in Week 40, all between last Monday and Wednesday, so once again my prediction was … Continue reading 40 weeks after the start of ‘lockdown’: yet more positive news about the impact of COVID-19 on Higher & Degree Apprenticeship vacancies in England

Headline news Yet again I’ve got a positive news story to report, with another interesting spread of new vacancies from both a regional and occupational perspective. The gap between the pre-lockdown and post-lockdown figures has closed even more, although one aspect that might be worth future analysis is the proportion of new vacancies that are … Continue reading 39 weeks after the start of ‘lockdown’: more good news about the impact of COVID-19 on Higher & Degree Apprenticeship vacancies in England

Headline news It’s all a bit too good to be true at the moment. Despite all the doom and gloom around us, new higher and degree apprenticeship vacancies have been relatively plentiful recently, especially degree apprenticeships. What’s more, I’m already hearing that next week looks promising too, with 70 Economist vacancies to be announced on … Continue reading 38 weeks after the start of ‘lockdown’: further positive news about the impact of COVID-19 on Higher & Degree Apprenticeship vacancies in England

Headline news Week 37 was another decent one, especially for degree apprenticeships and especially ln Suffolk. BT pitched up with 67 new vacancies, 28 of which were at their Martlesham Heath site near Ipswich, which I know well from my annual trips to speak at a school in nearby Woodbridge (hence this week’s image which … Continue reading 37 weeks after the start of ‘lockdown’: yet more positive news about the impact of COVID-19 on Higher & Degree Apprenticeship vacancies in England

This is an article I originally wrote for the Which? University website. A version of it can currently be found on the UCAS site. Are you getting frustrated because you can’t think of a good way to open your personal statement? Or, worse still, are you struggling to write anything at all because you just … Continue reading UCAS personal statements: writing a killer opening