A report issued this summer showing that apprentices can earn up to 270% more than their graduate counterparts over their lifetime has delighted pioneering insulation firm Actis.
The “Productivity and Lifetime Earnings of Apprentices and Graduates” report by the Centre for Economics and Business Research and Barclays is encouraging for those keen to demonstrate that apprenticeships are a valid route into a professional career.
The report’s findings chime with an idea put forward by Actis UK and Ireland director Matthew King, who believes that both the housing crisis and the skills shortage can be ameliorated by greater concentration on off site timber frame construction.
His belief is that creating quality, thermally efficient, yet quicker to build properties which require fewer skilled man hours will go some way towards ensuring enough homes for the growing number of households predicted in a recent government report.
He says the problem of insufficient housing has been exacerbated by a lack of skilled workforce. Homes constructed offsite, he contests, are of equivalent or better quality than their brick and block equivalents, less complicated to construct and can therefore be built by people with fewer specialised construction skills and in less time.
However, he suggests that while making a concerted effort to increase new build numbers over the short term is essential to plug the housing gap, it is also vital that new skilled tradespeople are trained in the coming years to cope with longer term issues.
He hopes the CEBR report, which overturns preconceptions that apprenticeships are inferior to A levels and degrees as a route into a career, will act as a spur to those put off by hefty student debt or traditional learning methods to follow an apprenticeship route instead.
The report reveals that the average gap in lifetime earnings potential between apprentices and graduates is just 1.8 per cent, with the average ‘Lifetime Earning Premium’ difference for the two study paths at just £2,200.
While commonly known as routes into manual careers, the report shows that apprenticeships are extremely valuable in a range of industries – with apprentices in media and the arts earning 270% more over their lifetime than their graduate counterparts!
Business, administration and law accounted for the most apprenticeship starts in 2014/15 at 29 per cent and the report states that apprenticeships have no age barrier – with 43 per cent of starts last year made by over 25s.
Apprenticeship uptake has more than doubled in the past decade, says the report, with almost half a million people starting in the 2014/15 academic year.
