University of Nottingham Celebrated for Innovative Degree Apprenticeship Programs at Regional Awards Ceremony
The quality of the University of Nottingham’s degree apprenticeship programmes, which provide talented apprentices to bridge the skills gap and tackle challenges facing local employers, has been recognised with a leading regional industry award.
The university was named Training Provider of the Year at the Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire Apprenticeship Awards 2024, held on Thursday 3 October at the Village Hotel in Nottingham.
Lizzy Martin, Employer Engagement Manager at the University of Nottingham said: “It was brilliant to be a part of the Derbyshire & Nottinghamshire Apprenticeship Awards 2024 and to have the chance to celebrate our win with our partner employers.”
Our strong employer partnerships are at the heart of what we do; together we’re setting a new standard of excellence.
Lizzy Martin, Employer Engagement Manager at the University of Nottingham
Since the launch of its degree apprenticeships in 2018, the university has collaborated with employers to meet local, regional and national workforce needs and to deliver degree apprenticeships that combine expertise in research-led education with practical experience to make a tangible impact in the workplace across the areas of healthcare, engineering and data science.
The university offers each employer a dedicated account manager to support them on their journey and advise them on their individual business needs and provides close collaboration to create a degree apprenticeship community through regular feedback, events and industry panels.
To support employer engagement, the university holds regular events dedicated to cross-industry collaboration such as the Employer Engagement Day in March which brought together more than 90 business representatives to learn and engage with each other.
High calibre education, world-class research
Being a part of the prestigious Russell Group of universities sets Nottingham apart because it enables its apprentices to access a high calibre education with world-class research underpinning its programmes.
The university plans to continue its expansion of its degree apprenticeship programmes in strategic areas aligned with its expertise for continued business growth across the country. As part of its commitment to provide high-quality staff to the healthcare industry, it will be launching a new Enhanced Clinical Practitioner apprenticeship in 2025, which will offer NHS trusts a new pathway to develop their workforce to provide a high standard of complex care for patients, using enhanced levels of clinical judgement.
It is also developing an AI Data Scientist Degree Apprenticeship to meet the digital needs of the future, and has recently had an application for the Teacher Degree Apprenticeship secondary maths funding pilot accepted, which will allow the university to help tackle the issue of a lack of secondary maths teachers across the country.
This latest award is not the first time that the university’s degree apprenticeship programmes have been recognised – in July this year Ofsted highlighted its excellent employer relationships, noting that employers were ‘highly satisfied’ with the relationships they have with staff and highlighting that the ‘Quality of Education’ and ‘Leadership and Management’ of the university’s degree apprenticeship programmes were of a particularly high standard.