As part of our Apprenticeships: Pathway to Success programme, ITN Business caught up with Pete Milsom, Partnerships Manager for Apprenticeships at UCAS.

In this interview, Pete shares insights into the key differences between traditional degrees and degree apprenticeships, why they’re an option worth considering, how UCAS is simplifying the application journey, and why raising awareness among young people early is crucial to unlocking the many benefits apprenticeships can offer.

5 questions with Pete Milsom

1. What’s the difference between a degree and a degree apprenticeship?

A degree is what’s in most people’s head when they think about going to university; going to campus, lectures, tutorials, essays, library and time studying; that’s probably the classic view of a degree.

A degree apprenticeship is an apprenticeship with a degree integrated in it. So, like with all apprenticeships, degree or otherwise, you will spend most of your time at work learning practical experience from your colleagues and doing workplace tasks, so that you’re getting that real hands-on experience from being at work.

20 per cent of your time is spent studying with a degree apprenticeship – 80 per cent of your time is spent at work getting practical experience. So, at the end of your degree apprenticeship, you’ll get an apprenticeship, but you’ll also have a university degree.

2. How do you apply for an apprenticeship?

At the moment there are many ways to apply for an apprenticeship. The apprenticeship is an application to an employer because an apprenticeship is a real job just like any other, so the apprentice will have to make an application to an employer. Employers will have all sorts of different application methods, so you might have a smaller employer who will say ‘send us a CV’, set up a call and you’re in, right up to larger employers who might have multi-stage interviews or assessment centres or psychometric tests. So, there are many different kinds of application methods that employers will use to recruit their apprentices. And this is one of the biggest challenges that apprentices find.

3. How is UCAS supporting people to apply for apprenticeships?

Right now, there are pages on ucas.com which give guidance on how to make an application to an apprenticeship. But by the end of 2024, we’re hoping to be rolling out our new application service, so this is going to be a service where a would-be apprentice applying for an apprenticeship would be able to come to UCAS, and using the information that they’re signed up to the UK’s hub with, will be able to apply for an apprenticeship opportunity within a matter of clicks. And employers will be able to use that kind of standardised apprenticeship application service as well.

4. What needs to be done to educate people about the benefits of degree apprenticeships?

I think that it’s not something that one organisation could do alone, so I don’t think that UCAS can do it alone, or the Department for Education, for example. I think that as educators, as employers, as training providers, we all need to work to put those apprenticeship opportunities in front of young people at an earlier age — before they are making those key decisions. Perhaps before they’re choosing GCSEs.

We know that people discover university options quite early on, perhaps as young as nine. They don’t discover apprenticeships as early, and if you don’t know, then you can’t make an informed choice about what you’d like to do next.

5. Why should people consider a degree apprenticeship?

I want to make it clear at this stage that at UCAS, we’re not putting university degrees above apprenticeships, or giving more prominence to apprentices over universities. It’s all about making the right decision for the right person when it comes to degree apprenticeships. I hesitate to mention cost and finance, but of course this is funded by the apprenticeship levy, so it’s funded partly by employers, but also funded by the government. So, you won’t get into debt by doing a degree apprenticeship, because your course is already paid for.

Outside of the finances, it’s important to remember that it’s a different way of learning; you’re going to learn on-the-job. You’ll be there learning from your experiences at work. As I said before, an apprenticeship is a real job, so you’ll be learning from your colleagues; from mentors; from actually doing the task. Most of the time, that’s what you’ll be doing as an apprentice.

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Approved by UCAS