Tag: Apprenticeships

Britain a fail on recruiting female IT folk

Posted on November 27, 2013 by - News

Scott Fletcher, ANS GroupAn Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) skills report has shown that only seven percent of IT engineers in the UK are female.

Worse than that, that percentage has only risen by two percent over the last five years.

We’re lagging behind Spain (18%), Italy (20%) and Sweden (26%), the survey shows.

Scott Fletcher, chairman and founder of cloud company ANS Group, said: “We need to increase the flow of young talent into tech and engineering industries and attracting more women is an obvious answer. Currently a large proportion of female Stem graduates (science, technical, engineering and mathematics) are choosing careers in other industries.”

And there’s even worse news because a report from the Institute of Physics earlier this showed half of all the co-educational schools in the UK hadn’t entered a single female student to sit A level physics.

“It seems that Britain’s schools have pigeon holed physics as a ‘boys’ subject which is a notion that needs to be eradicated immediately,” he said. “The IT industry is obviously fluid and businesses need to re-invent themselves every few years. There is no sitting back on past glories in our industry and young talent is the essential fuel for that re-invention.”

Fletcher said the ANS Group has formed a “Cloud Academy” providing training for 60 apprentices a year.  The firm is based in Manchester.

EE pledges jobs, sustainability

Posted on April 18, 2013 by - News

eeCarrier EE has published its first Responsibility Report, and we’re sure the PR cogs were working overtime to get it word perfect.

Within its musings, the company claims it has identified twelve areas that need improving, including reducing its environmental impact, keeping children safe and building further sustainability in its supply chain.

It also promised that by 2015 it will improve the digital skills of 1 million people, as well as recruit 500 apprentices into its business

The company has said it will be launching an EE graduate scheme and has committed to
supporting Plotr, the government-supported careers portal which is set to launch this year.

EE said its HR team will begin an initiative in schools, supporting 10 week-long work experience placements at its Bristol office for students from local secondary schools.

The pledges come as a new survey found that a quarter of Brits can’t be bothered to report broadband issues. According to comparison website Recombu.com/digital, of the 1447 people it asked  74 percent blamed slow internet issues on ‘heavy traffic’ and fail to report slow connectivity to their internet service provider.

Just over a third said they only reported a problem when ‘connectivity stopped entirely’, while 11 percent stated that they ‘never’ reported issues.

Connections Recruitment increases IT job reach and apprenticeships

Posted on March 27, 2013 by - News

Hands across the waterConnections, a family owned recruitment company, is increasing its client and candidate reach.

It has also said it will broaden its offerings and recruitment for IT posts as well as make more moves into apprenticeships.

The company, which has survived tough economic times, running since 1985, employs 15 recruitment specialists and operates from offices in Manchester city centre, Sale and Stockport.

It currently rakes in a turn over of £5 million, but has said that it now wants to ramp this up by 20 percent .

It claims that over the the past 28 years it has placed in excess of 15,000 people in permanent jobs throughout the North West, while it’s also doing its bit for apprentices recently promoting its first apprentice and planning to take on a second to train them in all administrative aspects of the job.

The move is sure to please Prime Minister David Cameron who earlier this month claimed that apprenticeships should  become the “new norm” for school kids who choose not to get into debt by going to university.

Connections works with clients from sole traders to global PLCs and recruits for roles in administration, customer services, accounting, finance, HR, recruitment, logistics, buying, textiles, sales and marketing.

Jonathan Dobkin, co-owner of Connections, said the company’s plan had always been to grow the business organically and expand divisional offering.

PM Cameron wants more apprenticeships

Posted on March 11, 2013 by - News

DCApprenticeships could become the “new norm” for school kids who choose not to get into debt by going to university if the Prime Minister has his way.

Clearly impressed by Donald Trump and Alan Sugar who have pushed these schemes into the limelight, David Cameron has said he now wants to see this training sitting “at the heart” of the government’s mission to rebuild the economy.

The PM will now call on the industry to make these schemes available to school leavers when he visits a training academy in Buckinghamshire.

The moves come as National Apprenticeship Week kicks off today. And it is clear Cameron wants to show he’s doing something for this, showing that his party is committed to helping teens get into work.

According to Whitehall, more than 500,000 people started an apprenticeship between 2011 and 2012.  The Centre for Economics and Business Research have also claimed that  completed apprenticeships over the next 10 years could contribute up to £3.4 billion a year to the UK economy through productivity gains by 2022.

Cameron is expected to claim that schemes such as these give school leavers the chance to learn a trade and build their careers which in turn helps boost the economy.

He will also tell MPs that they need to look at how apprenticeships can be expanded so they are available to all.