Trish Murphy is the Apprenticeships Lead at the RTPI
Wouldn’t it be great to hear more people say that… to have a greater understanding of the sector, the fantastic opportunities it can offer and the different ways of accessing them.
National Apprenticeship Week (NAW) is an opportunity to shine a spotlight on apprentices’ stories, examples of good apprenticeship training and employer support. Apprenticeships play an increasingly important part in developing people, providing opportunities to a diverse audience whilst allowing talented and qualified sector specialists to share knowledge and experience.
Did you know…?
- there are now over 700 apprentices completing the Chartered Town Planner apprenticeship
- at 11 accredited Planning Schools
- working with over 160 public and private employers - large and small.
These figures show that interest in this alternative route to achieve Chartered status is on the increase, which is good news.
Personally, I am delighted to see the Chartered Town Planner apprenticeship go from strength to strength supporting individuals to get into planning, progressing to Chartered status, and providing employers with another way to engage, support, and retain staff in the sector.
As ever though, there is always room for more...
It would be great to see more town planning apprenticeship vacancies available and advertised in places where apprentices are signposted to look. We receive daily emails from potential apprentices looking for apprenticeship vacancies and direct them to our How to Apply information on our website.
If you are an employer:
- Did you know that Recruit an Apprentice is the free government site for advertising apprenticeship vacancies and is one of the sites people looking for apprenticeships are directed to?
- Did you know that you can also advertise your apprenticeship vacancies on UCAS so while students explore and consider which route is best for them, they can see university courses and live apprenticeship vacancies all in one place?
- You can also advertise on the other sites such as Not Going to Uni which attracts thousands of students to its site each day.
These sites can also help those employers looking to diversify their workforce and reach potential apprentices who would not ordinarily visit their company website to source opportunities – mainly because they don’t know of the variety of employers and organisations that recruit town planners.
Let’s try to make identifying opportunities easier for those keen to pursue apprenticeship vacancies in the sector and let’s spotlight all the great apprentice stories during National Apprenticeship Week 2024…
In fact, just like the saying puppies are not just for Christmas, apprenticeships are not just for NAW, they should be celebrated all year round!
Education is a devolved matter in the UK and currently our schemes are running in England, though we have been having discussions with the devolved jurisdictions - watch this space!
