Apprenticeship use increases in Wales as fight for talent intensifies

As National Apprenticeship Week (7-13 February) gets underway, new research from Grant Thornton UK LLP shows that the mid-market in Wales is increasingly making use of apprenticeships as a means of upskilling their people at all levels.

With job vacancies and resignations at record highs, Grant Thornton’s latest Business Outlook Tracker* survey shows that there’s an upward trend of apprenticeship use in the mid-market which is set to expand in 2022. 60% of respondents in Wales agreed that more of their people will be trained using apprenticeships this year than in 2021.

Employers saw additional strategic benefits to apprenticeships with nearly two thirds (64%) of the business leaders surveyed saying that apprenticeships had helped to improve social mobility in their business and more than half (60%) agreed that formal development supports employee wellbeing.

The study found that Welsh mid-market organisations are now using apprenticeships at all levels of the business from entry level to senior management. The majority of those surveyed (58%) said that the Apprenticeship Levy had been a motivating factor in the increased use.

This growing use of apprenticeships in Wales mirrors the national picture. From the 601 UK-wide respondents to Grant Thornton’s latest Business Outlook Tracker* survey, all but one business said that they currently use apprenticeships to develop their people. This has increased from a similar study conducted by the firm in 2018**, when 86% of mid-market respondents said they used apprenticeships in their organisation.

Alistair Wardell, partner at Grant Thornton UK LLP and head of its restructuring team in the South of England and Wales, said: “In a climate where job vacancies and attrition are reaching record highs, retention and recruitment of skilled individuals has never been more critical to business growth. To manage this challenge, many employers in Wales are utilising apprenticeships courses thanks to the fact that they offer an agile, customisable and highly effective way to develop and attract talent.

“We’re seeing businesses being ever more strategic with their use of apprenticeships to address issues ranging from improving diversity in the workforce, achieving sustainable recruitment and replacing traditional graduate programmes with highly desirable qualifications. The ability to tailor apprenticeships to specific requirements is especially valuable and businesses are using these courses to incorporate valuable skills into their organisation.”

According to rolling data from Grant Thornton’s Business Outlook Tracker*, investment expectations for skills development in the Welsh mid-market have fluctuated greatly throughout the challenges of 2021. At the start of 2021, 46% of Welsh businesses said they intended to invest more in skills development over the next six months, a figure which has gone up and down throughout the year, last recorded in December at 28%.

Alistair Wardell suggests that this dip in investment expectations has less to do with appetite for skills development than it does with rapidly changing priorities, “The expectation to invest in skills is directly linked to confidence in the strength of the economy, with high levels of optimism causing similarly high expectations in training and development.

“Since early 2020, businesses have come to recognise that while they need to upskill their workforce to achieve growth, there needs to be cost effective solutions in place to facilitate any workforce development. This is why the Welsh Government’s Apprenticeship Programme has been so helpful and why it has become an integrated part of Learning and Development funding for firms across Wales, as it provides funding for qualifications up to master’s degree level.”

As a leading employer of apprenticeships, Grant Thornton has long championed the benefits they can offer. Around 20% of Grant Thornton’s UK workforce are currently using apprenticeships for development and it also partners with leading training and education providers to deliver high quality, Levy funded, development programmes with practical application from the outset.