It's Scottish Apprenticeship Week which is a nationwide celebration of apprenticeships. The week, co-ordinated by Scotland’s skills agency Skills Development Scotland takes place from 4 - 8 March 2024.
We've been talking to our Modern apprentices past and present and they've been sharing their experiences. Meet Andrew Wilson and Abigail Shaw.
I work in the IT department as a User Support Engineer Modern Apprentice. It involves studying a variety of subjects in the IT sphere as well as attending training courses, workshops and completing assessments.
The studying section of the apprenticeship lasts one year as you complete a SVQ qualification online, afterwards you gain more experience for one more year with VisitScotland.
My day usually involves resolving any issues that people have that day as well as getting devices ready to be used and making time to complete my coursework.
My experience has been very positive.
The apprenticeship is a fantastic opportunity to get to work at VisitScotland and to learn a lot from a highly knowledgeable team. I’d recommend it to anyone interested in alternative ways of learning.
I love keeping VisitScotland running smoothly and getting to help people is super rewarding.
I joined in 2018 as SEO Modern Apprentice and completed a Business Admin SVQ in the first year. After that I got the opportunity to do a follow-on qualification where I then completed an SVQ in Digital Marketing in year two.
The apprenticeship opened up a lot of career opportunities in an area I never would have considered whilst still at school. It gave me a great real-life perspective on what jobs are out there that you maybe don’t hear about in the day-to-day.
In the year I joined, we had a four apprentices, so it also made coming out of high school into the workplace a lot less daunting knowing there were people around my age going through the same thing. Many apprentices (and graduates) from previous years stuck around too so there was a good support system!
I’ve been quite fortunate with my pathway at VisitScotland since my apprenticeship. I joined the SEO team as an apprentice in 2018, got a role as SEO Analyst at the start of 2020, and am now the SEO Manager.
Throughout my time at VisitScotland I’ve also been given plenty opportunity to try out different roles, with shadowing and secondments across business analysis, influencer marketing, and content for our corporate website.
I absolutely would! I think I had a lot of worries coming out of high school and being one of few I knew not to go to university, but it absolutely worked out for me and I think it’s a really good way to kick-off a career.
Before joining VisitScotland I really thought MA's were only for trades, so the more people that know it covers a huge range of roles and disciplines the better.