INSIGHTS / News

QA Apprenticeships is pleased to announce its latest partnership with Engine Shed in Bristol, a thriving hub for all things enterprise and growth where entrepreneurs, business leaders, academics, students and corporates can collaborate, inspire and be inspired.

The aim of the joint activity between QA and Engine Shed is to stimulate long term economic growth by inspiring employers and young people of the South West to get involved in apprenticeships – building a cycle of sustainable digital talent for the region.

Bristol & Bath is one of the UK’s fastest growing tech hubs and has developed into one of the most prosperous locations for companies to test the next-generation of tech concepts on a city-wide scale*.

Amongst other ‘components’ Engine Shed hosts the Bristol SETsquared Centre, which together with its partner incubators at Bath, Southampton, Surrey and Exeter, is ranked best university business incubator in Europe and second, globally.

With QA being the first IT apprenticeships business to create 5000 careers in just five years, the collaboration with an established organisation like Engine Shed is hugely beneficial and raises the possibility of generating many new tech jobs for the region’s young people.

Ben Pike, Director of QA Apprenticeships, says: “Apprenticeships are now a proven skills solution for technology businesses when recruitment and training are aligned to sector needs. Working closely with Engine Shed is giving us local insight into how to better serve the needs of the Bristol and Bath region.

We have developed our apprenticeship portfolio including IT, software development, and digital marketing to support the growing tech industry in the UK, to which Bristol is a huge contributor. With 94% of our apprentices going onto full-time jobs, our aim is to create the best opportunities for the region’s young people with Bristol’s businesses.”

Nick Sturge, Director of Engine Shed, added: “We are doing really well at growing high-tech, creative and digital businesses in Bristol & Bath but this increases the demand on up to date skills and availability of talent. In bringing in a leading apprenticeship provider – coinciding with National Apprenticeship Week last week– we are making an important statement about the role apprenticeships play in this industry and especially in Bristol & Bath where we have such a large pool of raw talent.”

Engine Shed work closely with the West of England LEP Creative Skills Hub, created to ensure that skills and training provision in the West of England meets the needs of a growing creative and digital sector. Supporting SME’s to grow, talent to up-skill and new talent to find the right pathways into employment.