Apprenticeships at WFM

Apprenticeships at WFM provide an ideal blend of work and study; giving you new challenges in a real, successful workplace while developing your confidence and abilities.

You might be surprised by just how rewarding they are and how far an apprenticeship can take you.

Starting an apprenticeship allows you to earn while you learn, getting the best of both employment and education. You’ll gain valuable on-the-job knowledge while still taking home a monthly paycheque.

We’ve run a successful apprenticeship scheme for over 10 years, with the majority of our apprentices becoming permanent members of the team after completing the programme.

Initially starting with the Support department, the scheme has now been rolled out across the company, with apprentices joining the Sales, Projects and Infrastructure teams.

Meet our Apprenticeship partner: Cirencester College

Cirencester College is based at the heart of the South Cotswolds’ town of Cirencester.  As a specialist post-16 provider, the College has an exceptional choice of courses including A-levels, Vocational and the exciting new T-level qualifications. Cirencester College’s reputation for excellent teaching, learning, innovation and student support has produced consistently high success rates.

The College also has a strong reputation for delivering good quality apprenticeships, serving employers in Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, South Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire and expanding our offering further afield especially through archaeology apprenticeships.

This growing reputation has not only attracted a record number of students but also a significant amount of government funding.  Since 2022 the College has opened the Gloucestershire Digital Skills Centre, helping to address the skill shortages in the fast growing digital and cyber sectors.  The new state of the art T-level Centre, the Art Lofts and in September 2024 the new Avebury Building which reinforces the College’s promise to nurture talent of the future.

Over the last few years, we have together successfully delivered a high number of apprenticeships for WFM covering 4 different I.T specialisms.  We currently provide apprenticeships to a mix of SME and larger (Levy paying) organisations across 25 apprenticeship standards in the following areas

• Archaeology
• Business Support
• Customer Services
• Digital & I.T
• Finance and Accounting
• Marketing
• Media, Broadcast and Production
• Teaching and Learning.

We ensure every learner and employer gets the best experience whilst completing their apprenticeship through us, so we have a variety of workshops, online courses and industry specialists on hand to support and guide along the way.  Meaningful tasks and practical learning embed the on the job learning and results are a key factor in why so many businesses opt for us as their training provider of choice.

We work with local employers in the area, and also nationally to generate apprenticeship vacancies.  We are proud to have a high level of repeat business from existing customers, new leads from networking, Employer events and lots of word of mouth recommendations.

We are dedicated to ensuring the success of apprentices and are seeing increased appetite for existing staff to be enrolled on an apprenticeship standard to enrich the organisation and upskill current teams through enhancing existing knowledge, skills and behaviours to be successful in the workplace.

An apprenticeship is a full-time job with a blend of ‘on’ and ‘o? the job’ training that provides you with the skills you need for your chosen career, whilst also earning a wage. Apprenticeships are available across a very wide range of industry sectors and are an excellent way of gaining nationally recognised apprenticeship skills, knowledge and behaviours, whilst working and gaining real workplace experience.