National Apprenticeship Week 2024: the importance of apprentices

This week is National Apprenticeship Week (5^th to 11^th February) and the 17^th annual celebration of apprenticeships in the UK. Every year there is a theme and this year’s focus is Skills for Life. These next few days offer an opportunity to celebrate the value, benefits, and opportunities that apprenticeships bring to both apprentices and employers.

Apprenticeships provide benefits for both the apprentice and their employer. They are a great way to bring new people into the business and to be able to develop their skills and knowledge with real-world experience. Unlike other routes to gaining a qualification, it also means you can earn while you learn offering a greater amount of independence.

At Westcotts, providing apprentices with skills for life has always been at the heart of what we do. Having taken on apprentices for a number of years, we get to watch them grow and achieve with some staying within our ranks to become Managers, Seniors, and Partners. Our apprentices get to grips with bookkeeping, audits, tax and more as they build up experience and undertake work with us and our clients.

Westcotts’ commitment to apprenticeships, their diversity and success rate was recognised when we were named as one of the Department of Education’s top apprenticeship employers in 2023.

We have strong links to schools, colleges, and universities around the South West. Our apprenticeship offering spans levels three, four and seven across our 16 offices in Devon and Cornwall. The accountancy qualifications are widely recognised in the working world including the Association of Accounting Technicians (AAT), the Institute of Chartered Accountants England and Wales

(ICAEW) and the Association of Certified Chartered Accountants (ACCA). We currently have 18 people training on the ATT scheme, 6 on the ACA scheme and 11 on the ACCA scheme.

We’re proud to announce our recent sign-up to the , reinforcing our commitment to fostering apprenticeship opportunities and celebrating the success of our apprentices in the region.

With a culture that focuses on inclusivity, we always centre collaboration, guidance, and progression within everything that we do, placing a great deal of importance on staff progress. We aim to help all of our team meet career goals, ambitions, and aspirations and this is no different with our apprentices.

A dedicated Line Manager is given to every apprentice, and they will support them through their training with regular opportunities for review and further mentoring. Many of our apprentices choose to stay with us once they have achieved their qualifications and continue to progress within the firm—which is always a wonderful thing to celebrate.

To see which apprenticeship vacancies are currently available with Westcotts, click here to view our Current Vacancies. For more information on National Apprenticeship Week, you can visit their website and get involved using the hashtag #NAW2024.