A golden ticket to personal, career and business growth
There is a career doorway in Gloucestershire you can step through that might make you very rich indeed. Certainly, it will lead to a well-paid and exciting job. Here’s how it works.
Dear readers,
Welcome to your first edition of The Raikes Journal of the week, the digital magazine focusing on Gloucestershire’s business community, its education, training and third sectors.
And speaking of education and training that’s the theme of today’s edition. Regular readers might recall a story we did just last month about the challenges around skills and apprenticeships.
We were lucky enough to speak to Andy Bates, of Gloucestershire College - one of the Founding Partners of Raikes - for our article that took a look at just one sector - cyber and the challenges it faced.
Today we’re back there again.
Why?
Partly because since then the Government has revealed its master plan to drive UK plc to greater growth and productivity. It’s solution is apprenticeships.
And on Wednesday Gloucestershire College stages an apprenticeship open evening.
Many businesses, it seems, are still not engaging, some schools, and some attitudes are not changing fast enough. The smart ones are already onboard, and we’ll try and explain why we think that below.
And as we said, we return to Gloucestershire College. This time to take a look at an institution that is itself ahead of the curve, and we take a deep dive into why we and many others think its teaching of cyber apprenticeships, and it degree-level apprenticeship in particular, is so special.
We hope you enjoy the read.
Remember, for every person you refer to The Raikes Journal’s email service you get points towards a free membership allowing you to see beyond our paywalls. Please do sign up (free or otherwise), send the referral link to a friend or colleague, and help us grow.
Have a great week.
Andrew Merrell (editor).
If you have a story, an issue, a news item, a charity or an interview you want us to write about or investigate, challenge the powers that be about, then please email me: andrew.merrell@raikesjournal.co.uk.
NB: We believe Raikes now publishes probably the best-read business-related email ‘newsletter’, pound for pound, in Gloucestershire. Readership is growing and 2025 looks good!
Apprenticeship reforms set to turbocharge economic growth
The Government has put its faith in apprenticeships to solve the UK’s economic woes - from its skills shortages to its productivity issues. We outline what’s afoot ahead of our main story.
Before we get onto today’s main read, here’s what we gleaned from the Government recently - starting with its belief that apprentices in England will drive £25 billion of economic growth over their lifetime.
This is almost double the £14bn contribution found the last time this was assessed in 2018, which the Government says demonstrates apprentices’ importance to its mission to grow the economy under what it calls its Plan for Change.
And that plan is already in action. The Government points to a 1.3 per cent rise in apprenticeship starts and 1.1 per cent rise in “achievements” in the first quarter following last year’s general election as proof change is happening.
Ahead of this month’s National Apprenticeship Week (10 to 16 February) the Education Secretary, Bridget Phillipson said it was “vital” schools, colleges and businesses continue to champion apprenticeships.
Sweeping reforms were also announced, with Phillipson revealing “a boost in flexibility for employers around English and maths requirements” which she said would lead to “an extra 10,000 apprentices qualified each year in key sectors including construction, healthcare and clean energy”.
There was also a cut in the minimum duration of apprenticeships from 12 to eight months to help get qualified and experienced staff into businesses quicker and news there will be simpler End Point Assessments for those on apprenticeships.
It follows the Government announcement in September that a new skills and growth levy will replace the existing apprenticeship levy. And there was news of new foundation apprenticeships and the introduction of a level seven apprenticeships – equivalent to a master’s degree – outside of the levy.
Some of the detail is still missing, but the direction seems clear. Apprenticeships are the answer to UK plcs great skills shortage and seemingly fruitless search for better productivity.
According to the Government employer investment in training has been in steady decline over the past decade, with training expenditure at its lowest level since records began in 2011. Investment per employee is down by 19 per cent in real terms.
This is the Government putting the arm of big business behind its back and forcing it to pay for that training which it believes will deliver that great productivity and close the gap on the likes of France and Germany - whose output is apparently 20 per cent greater than ours.
Here in Gloucestershire, in terms of apprenticeships Gloucestershire College is already leading the way. The changes only underline its importance as a catalyst for our own growth and productivity.
On Wednesday 26 February it opens its doors between 5pm and 8pm to employers and wannabe apprentices to showcase the many paths it already has on offer, the connections to county employers it already has, how you can hook your business up (no matter what the size) to the college and explore the benefits of apprenticeships (you can find our more about that event here).
The college is also the only further education college in England where you can study a cyber degree apprenticeship accredited by the National Centre for Cyber Security (think GCHQ).
We chose to focus here for our main article below, and lift the lid on just why the likes of the NCSC think the college is leading the way.
Black & White Ball – A Night of Glamour and Giving
Every Monday we try and draw your eye to a charity hard at work in Gloucestershire. This week we help the Longfield Community Hospice spread the word about its Black & White Ball - a hugely important fundraiser for the work it does. It’s your chance to help support hospice care in the home in the county provided by the Minchinhampton-based charity, while also getting dressed up and having a damn good evening out. Due to take place at De Vere Cotswold Waterpark Hotel on Saturday, 29 March 2025, complete with “a three-course meal, live entertainment, and a stylish black-tie atmosphere”. Every ticket bought will help Longfield Hospice provide services from hospice at home to wellbeing services, counselling, and bereavement support. Find out more here.
* The Raikes Journal is a community interest company. Everything you read by us is made possible by our incredible Founding Partners: QuoLux, Willans LLP, Gloucestershire College, Merrell People and Randall & Payne, our sponsors Hartpury University and Hartpury College, our Founding Members and wonderful paying subscribers.
If you subscribe and invite friends to The Raike Journal you will earn rewards towards complimentary membership (three referrals will get you one month, 10 will get you three months, and 25 will win you six months).
If you upgrade to paid you’ll be part of this CIC too. We are dedicated to delivering quality journalism for Gloucestershire, to championing the county, in particular its businesses, charities, education and training providers, and to helping create an even stronger community. If you upgrade to paid you will be able to see past the paywalls often put on our second and third email editions of the week, that lock all our archive after two weeks and lock our rolling Top 100 Businesses in Gloucestershire series. You will be able to comment on our stories too. You’ll be helping make this CIC sustainable to deliver more original articles on our county.
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A golden ticket to personal, career and business growth
There is a doorway marked ‘apprenticeships’ in Gloucestershire you can step through that might make you very rich indeed. Certainly, it will lead to a well-paid and exciting job. Here’s how it works.
By Andrew Merrell.
We’re sat in the Advanced Digital Academy (ADA) at Gloucestershire College’s Cheltenham campus, a £3 million-plus suite of rooms for computer studies students, in the same building as the business workspace Hub8 GC (sister to the town centre Hub8 by Plexal in the MX centre).
It’s half term. As we’ve walked through from reception to find a quiet classroom – which even this week seems tricky - we passed members of the influential cyber-focused ecosystem, CyNam, plotting their next move.
Upstairs there’s a cyber bootcamp run by Rob Stemp (who co-founded cyber security specialists Red Maple) for anyone interested in the sector, in developing their skills and in rubbing shoulders with representatives from businesses keen to share and perhaps spot talent.
Mark Higgins, a lecturer (senior assesor and trainer) in computer studies for the college, is telling me how he was sat at home one evening watching the BBC TV series The Great British Bake Off when inspiration struck.
“The next day I came in, bought a plate from a shop up the road, printed off a ‘Great British Build Off’ logo in the same font as they use on the programme, glued it to the plate and we had our trophy,” he said.
“We then challenged the students to take a real-world problem, solve it in a digital form, then sell it back to the class.
“The work was really good, some of it was outstanding,” said Higgins, whose enthusiasm is infectious.
“When we told businesses about what we were doing they were thrilled too. They loved the idea of the students understanding that ideas needed to solve problems and be commercial and that they are part of that process.”
The anecdote was triggered because I had asked what the round of applause was for that could be heard from an adjoining room. It was students delivering some of those pitches.
“Doing that sort of thing is fun, but it’s about lots of things - including building their confidence. We work hard on that a well as skills,” said Higgins.
Which helps explain how Gloucestershire College is achieving what it is – it’s now in its fourth year of delivering cyber apprenticeship degrees. That’s usually something left to higher education, not a further education college.
It’s a degree it delivers thanks to a ground-breaking partnership with the University of the West of England, which has made the college’s Cheltenham campus, its ADA suite, and close proximity to GCHQ, a hot spot and go-to training provider for some simply enormous businesses.
How big? Think Amazon, for one.
All this is happening eight next door to its construction skills school – recently supercharged and expanded with a £5 million investment.
Higgins anecdotes about how important it is to help the students grow and develop has taken us off course slightly, but we think it speaks volumes.
He smiles when I tell him it is difficult to imagine him in the corporate world he once carved a successful career – for the likes of American global giant IBM.
He worked with companies in the defence sector and in particular on projects like the Eurofighter Typhoon. It’s a CV and career that provides him with plenty of relatable anecdotes to put wind into the sails of curious students hungry for insight.
And its experience that helps ensure the teaching he delivers never loses sight of the business world into which the students are destined for.
Raikes is not actually in the college to profile him, but can’t resist focusing in on the Glaswegian father-of-three as it helps bring to life what is happening at the college right under our noses; real enthusiasm for pushing boundaries and working with business.
He neglects to tell me he was recently voted Gloucestershire College Student Choice 2024 award (think ‘teacher of the year’ voted for by students).
But he was clearly moved enough to make a rare post onto LinkedIn to share the news. It was a post that attracted with scores of comments, from students and those in industry and working for some very interesting firms indeed, all telling him it was well-deserved.
Higgins himself would rather focus on the students. Raikes had interviewed Rowan Edlington, from EDF, only days before - one of the cyber degree apprenticeship students under his wing.
“She will probably be running EDF in a few years,” said Higgins, only half joking. “She is extraordinary. Exceptional. Such a great ambassador for that company.”
Edlington may not see herself as such, but she is a pioneer. Others have done similar elsewhere – but they too are pioneers.
She was self-aware enough to realise that despite being a grade A GCSE student A-Levels, especially during Covid, were not for her and she wanted something other than the university option.
Almost singlehandedly she wrestled the train from the track and built a new line - one heading towards an apprenticeship degree in a subject she is passionate about.
That route led her from her family home, near Manchester, to EDF in Gloucestershire, where she passed the interview, and moved to the city.
“I felt under pressure to go down the degree route, but knew it wasn’t for me. I didn’t even know about degree apprenticeships but then saw an advertisement for one at GCHQ.
“I immediately thought ‘that could work – I can get a degree in something I’m really interested in and get paid’.
“I didn’t get the role, but it did make my mind up. From then on I knew the route I wanted to do.”
While she continued to play the game of applying for university she pursued the dream, scouring the internet for opportunities (and using the Government website: https://www.gov.uk/apply-apprenticeship).
“Eventually I found one I really liked the look of at EDF that started in January.”
Particularly, she liked the physics element to the apprenticeship, but the opportunities to experience a broad range of departments in a huge business building the nation’s next generation of nuclear reactors was too good to miss.
Like a student going off to university Edlington then had to relocate to a city she didn’t know to start her new role.
“I've always been pretty good at putting myself out there,” she said.
“And I am lucky, I have always had good role models in my life and I have very supportive parents.”
She was brave in other ways too. Her move made her one of the first intake on the cyber degree apprenticeship and she is now in final part of the programme.
Her move down South saw he living in a shared house full of ‘young professionals’, which she dimplomatically described as “an eye-opener”, but the giant leap she made was softened by a hugely supportive employer in EDF.
And flexible working allows her to manage the odd working day back at her family home, which has proved invaluable.
Along the way she has also faced other challenges, surmountable no doubt because of her can-do nature and drive.
Edlington herself gives credit to her employer again, and especially to Gloucestershire College, for helping her when she was diagnosed with ADHD.
“They were very supportive. It has helped me understand myself better, and it has helped me understand how I learn too,” she said.
Higgins would not talk specifically about any of his students, but he suggested as many as 50 per cent of them could be classed as what we now call neurodiverse.
“There are measures we put in place to support everyone to allow them to be the best they can be.
“Businesses in cyber especially want diversity. They want people who can solve problems, who view the world differently. It’s a positive,” he said.
And then there is that other big challenge for the sector, one faced head on by Edlington again – gender. The industry is conspicuously top and bottom-heavy by men.
EDF, she said, openly acknowledges the challenge: “It wants to hit 40 per cent (female) by 2023. One of the problems is there are not enough females in the talent pool.
“When I was doing my A Levels I was the only girl in physics, for example.”
If the French-owned energy giant does achieve its self-imposed target it will be impressive. There is certainly little doubting its commitment to apprenticeships.
“Apprenticeships are at the heart of what it does. We have just reached 1,000 apprentices for Hinley Point (the business is building two nucleaer power plants in Somerset). Everyone is so excited about that at the moment,” said Edlington
I mention to her that I once interviewed a female engineer at Renishaw, a graduate of its apprenticeship degree route, who had a similar story to tell - from the struggle to pursue what she wanted to the benefits of getting paid while she studied.
I tell her I recalled her saying that just a few months after graduating she was able to say she was debt-free and considering buying her first flat.
“I would say apprentices earn between £18,000 and £25,000 – depending on what company they are with. Then most would expect to earn a graduate salary starting at £35,000 upwards. Some in our sector may be on £40,000.”
As we sit there wrapping up the chat, Higgins puts it like this.
“We do have a challenge to get some firms to embrace apprenticeships still. But some of the very biggest and best are completely on board and the hurdles seem to now be with the smaller firms,” he said, suggesting the argument was tipped heavilly in favour of them only becoming more and more popular.
“Look at it like this. If you have a well-qualified degree-level graduate in front of you with three years of academic experience and an apprentice graduate who knows your business, understands what its goals are and their place within it, which would you choose?”
And just how promising is a good career in the cyber sector?
“The days of people starting as some kind of barrow boy like Alan Sugar and building up from there are not dead, but if you want to make real money you learn how to use on of these,” he said, nodding towards his laptop.
“You learn how to code, you learn how to use it to solve problems people want solved, and you learn how to sell what you’ve made. That’s how you will make an awful lot of money.”
Gloucestershire College’s open evening is on Wednesday 26 February at its Gloucester campus from 5pm to 8pm. Find out more here.