British Gas offers IT apprenticeships
- Reduce text size Decrease text size
- Increase text size Increase text size
- Print article Print
- Jump to comments Comment
- Share this article Share
- Email article to a friend Email
Utility provider offers 30 school leavers on-the-job training plus classroom tuition in e-skills-backed programme
British Gas has launched a new scheme to attract young IT talent by offering 30 apprenticeships.
The two-year scheme is designed to attract for school leavers with little or no experience in IT, but with a "passion for technology and an enthusiasm to learn".
The scheme offers a combination of on-the-job training and classroom-based learning, and participants will come away with a Level 3 Advanced Apprenticeship qualification and a Duke of Edinburgh gold award.
"You’ll work towards respected industry qualifications you won’t find in academia," group CIO Dave Bickerton said in a document explaining the scheme (.pdf) to candidates. "And the best thing is you’ll get vital experience of systems as you learn."
The apprenticeships are available in four streams: software development, software testing, projects and business engagement and user experience.
The scheme is backed by the UK's IT skills authority e-skills. According to the e-skills website, apprentices are paid a minimum of £100 a week.
Earlier this year, British Gas' parent company Centrica signed a £250 million IT outsourcing deal with Hewlett-Packard, which will provide utility web hosting services.
Last year, the company was criticised for cutting jobs while profit more than doubled in the last year. CEO Sam Laidlaw reposponded to critics in the Daily Telegraph. "“The government wants energy companies to fund £200 billion of investment over the next decade to ensure secure, clean energy for the future,” he wrote. “We can only raise this enormous sum of money if we are profitable.”
It is great to see more and more companies recognising the importance of supporting young people to develop their IT skills.
It takes years to nurture talented individuals to a level of expertise that global companies can depend upon. For the UK to stand a chance of becoming an established power within the IT industry, individual companies need to work together with schools and the government to ensure more students take an interest in IT and have the best possible resources at their fingertips.
Organisations need to recognise the importance of this transition of specialised knowledge by building appropriate graduate schemes and treating the issue just like any other business contingency plan. Businesses also need to ensure they do their part and have jobs for graduates to go into.
Businesses depend on their IT systems as the backbone of their organisations. While their existing developers may be 5-10 years away from retirement, active recruitment today will ensure they can be replaced when the time comes. Industry should also work more closely with universities to ensure that graduates leave university with the skills that the industry demands today.
Arunn Ramadoss, Micro Focus
Report this comment »