Latest reflections in England After taking a break from my blog last weekend, this report covers a two-week period during which I’ve recorded almost 700 new vacancies. November tends to be the peak month for bigger providers launching their annual school and college-leaver programmes, hence a decent haul was always on the cards. This is … Continue reading Week 138: Higher & Degree Apprenticeship overview – it’s been a very busy November so far

Latest reflections in England This was the week when the cumulative total of vacancies I’ve recorded since the first COVID lockdown in March 2020 passed 30,000. On the face of it, this has given me a fantastic resource from which to paint a picture of a changing post-18 labour market. However, whilst I always emphasise … Continue reading Week 136: Higher & Degree Apprenticeship overview – an analysis of 30,000 vacancies

Latest reflections in England Week 135 turned out to be quite similar to the week before, with an average number of new HAs but another disappointing and below-average crop of new DAs. However, whilst a few of the big DA/HA providers’ annual schemes are already accepting applications for 2023, I’ve noticed several more of them … Continue reading Week 135: Higher & Degree Apprenticeship overview – latest developments and Scotland update

Latest reflections in England Week 134 was rather a slow one for DAs, especially as I take care not to include repeat postings of existing vacancies that I’ve already recorded, which was the case this week with some Nursing DAs. In contrast HAs were more abundant, but some of that was down to me catching … Continue reading Week 134: Higher & Degree Apprenticeship overview – a mixed bag

Latest reflections in England Whilst I’m sensing a few signs of recessionary conditions in the air, October is nonetheless proving to be quite buoyant so far. This is mainly because of the steady trickle of big employers and SMEs launching 2023 programmes, albeit in some cases with modest numbers. The stand-out providers in Week 133 … Continue reading Week 133: Higher & Degree Apprenticeship overview – lots of activity to report

Latest reflections The big highlight this week has been the first influx of 2023 vacancies with some of the major accountancy and professional services firms like PwC, BDO, RSM, Mazars and Deloitte, along with a bulk posting of Retail Leadership vacancies with Morrisons. Some of these always pose problems for me in gaining a realistic … Continue reading Week 132: Higher & Degree Apprenticeship overview – the provinces strike back

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

Latest reflections I’m becoming increasingly conscious of all the talk of recession and observing whether any signs emerge about this affecting the availability of the apprenticeships I cover in my regular blog (Levels 4 to 7). Indeed Week 130 was as slow as anything I can remember during the past four years. Given that I’m … Continue reading Week 130: Higher & Degree Apprenticeship overview – slow but with a glimmer of light

Latest reflections Having tracked new degree and higher apprenticeships continuously for almost four years now, I’m getting a good sense of the way they pan out across each academic year. In particular August and September always tend to be quite slow for degree apprenticeships, but then they’ll normally accelerate as we move into October. In … Continue reading Week 129: Higher & Degree Apprenticeship overview – regional variations are showing up on the radar

Latest reflections August petered out as quietly as I expected this week, with only 69 new vacancies across the entire United Kingdom meeting my criteria and just 14 of them being at Levels 6/7 (13 in England and 1 in Scotland). However, this is pretty much par for the course at this time of year. … Continue reading Week 128: Higher & Degree Apprenticeship overview – a quiet end to the summer