Apprentice open day at UKFast
Joining forces in a bid to help
Yesterday, we had the pleasure of attending #ApprenticeOpenDay in the wake of the current ‘Bright Futures’ situation. Just last week, Media City based company Bright Futures went into liquidation, leaving a large number of individuals without employment. The majority of these workers are apprentices ranging from 16-21 years, studying software development, UX design and other IT courses.
Our good friends at UKFast intuitively rose to the challenge, by organising an apprentice open day and opening up their offices. The day gave the disheartened apprentices hope for the future, offering them the opportunity to attend workshops and speak with other employers looking for bright young talent. The workshops and talks covered ways to improve your CV and generally have a better opportunity at employment. The apprentices also carried out psychometric tests to discover their passions and discuss their potential next steps.
Amongst a realm of digital agencies, employers and apprenticeship training providers, we attended the day in a bid to help. As a strong advocate of the apprentice schemes, at present we employ three apprentices. One of these apprentices being myself, a Digital Marketing Apprentice, the others a Back-end Developer Apprentice and a Front-end Developer Apprentice, who has now taken a junior role within the company. With over 200 apprentices in attendance, it was great to speak with to a large number of them about their work experience, aspirations, and tell them a little about Space 48.
Thank you to Lawrence Jones at UK Fast and Scott Fletcher of ANS who relayed a positive message and stressed the importance of the apprentices continuing their roles in tech; stick with it and you will be extremely successful. The day was encouraging, helpful and fun – even Darth Vader and his Stormtroopers made a special appearance!
A keynote from the day: ‘In times of adversity comes opportunity’.
Well done to UKFast for having the initiative to act fast to help these young people and continue to contribute to Manchester’s growing tech community.
