National Apprenticeship Week 2025

Well, that was a busy National Apprenticeship Week!

On Tuesday we spent a very busy evening at The City of Liverpool College Open Evening/Employer Market Place meeting with students studying at the college, and school leavers debating their next steps. There was loads of interest from students who we chatted with about the various pathways into apprenticeships at Kimpton, alongside the other employers attending.

On Thursday, Grace Roberts, Niamh Smith and I spent the day delivering Enterprise Challenges to 160 students at Grace’s old school, South Wirral High School as part of their STEM day. We explained the apprenticeship pathway into Engineering and the excellent salaries available which aren’t well understood – if we’re going to attract the talent our industry needs, we need to talk about money!

We then explained some of the renewable technologies and energy efficiency measures we’re deploying to decarbonise buildings for our customers. Student “Energy Assessors” from each group then toured the school to identify where energy is being wasted (windows open, lights on in empty rooms etc) returning with ideas to help the group build models of an energy-efficient school using recyclable rubbish – very Blue Peter!

At the end students presented their solutions showing how they would reduce waste, carbon and energy use with measures such as improved insulation, PIR light sensors in classrooms and renewable technologies from rainwater harvesting to solar PV and wind power.

Many years ago, Liverpool lost the training provision for commercial heating/plumbing and so around half our apprentices attend Salford City College Group. On Thursday evening, Keith Watts, our apprentice mentor, and I had a great night at their Annual Apprentice Awards and were delighted to win the Medium-sized Employer of the Year award!

On Friday morning, I joined Liverpool City Region Careers Hub to celebrate the launch of Equalex, an ambitious national plan to reinvent work experience for school children which is being piloted in Liverpool.

The equalex pilot will test a new framework to improve work experience. It replaces the traditional two-week block with multiple experiences totalling 10 days throughout secondary education. The pilot is one of four across England, each testing a different part of the new model, before the project is scaled up to allow for national roll-out.

equalex will provide a greater depth of real experiences in the workplace and make it easier for employers to deliver them, in smaller chunks. It will also provide support for teachers to leave the classroom and spend time with employers. This is vital if teachers are to understand the range of careers available locally, and the pathways into them.

We’ve got excellent vocational colleges in the Liverpool City Region with an abundance of keen young men and women, looking for an opportunity. If you’re wondering where to look for talent, we can’t recommend speaking to them enough!