To mark the start of National Apprenticeship Week 2025, our CEO Dr Diana Beech publishes her fourth and final ‘Diary of a Degree Apprentice’ on the London Higher blog, reflecting on the difference that her own degree apprenticeship experience has made to her company and career.
As we embark on National Apprenticeship Week 2025, the future of higher-level degree apprenticeships has never been more uncertain. While ministers in Whitehall look set to shift funding away from higher level apprenticeship routes, my colleagues from the Class of 2023 and I are embarking on our final taught module of our senior leadership apprenticeship at Bayes Business School, City St George’s, University of London.
In earlier blogs, I’ve written more generally about the importance of skilled leaders for all sectors of our economy: effecting growth and opportunity, filling skills gaps and addressing inefficiencies in the rapidly changing world of work. While these arguments are well-rehearsed, nothing speaks to policymakers more than the power of personal anecdote. So, that’s why I’m using my fourth and final blog in this series to quantify what my apprenticeship experience has given to me personally.
Business benefits
Knowledge gained through an apprenticeship is ‘on the job’ learning. That means new theories and frameworks are constantly being directly applied to the day job. After 18 months of taught courses, I’ve built up an impressive portfolio of assignments and papers of direct relevance to various aspects of my business – from thinking around communications and strategy analysis to HR and operations. Yet, with the day job so all-consuming, if I hadn’t been forced to think about these topics as part of my course, there is a very real risk that I would have neglected this strategic thinking – or at least not embraced it so quickly and systematically. Thanks to my apprenticeship, however, I’ve been able to take the business forward faster and prepare for its future.
Personal progression
Although I was not looking for a new job, when the opportunity arose to interview for a new position in the autumn, it gave me an ideal platform to put my new learnings into practice. As part of the interview process, I was asked to prepare and present a comprehensive business plan for a new university policy institute. I fully credit my apprenticeship programme for my success in this process and, without my recent learnings, I don’t believe I would be writing this blog today with an exciting career change on the horizon. My pending move also means I can bring my learnings to bear on not one but two organisations in quick succession, as I am leaving behind me a wealth of thinking for my board, team and eventual successor and preparing to apply this knowledge, skills and behaviours to a brand-new working environment.
Different perspectives
My apprenticeship experience has given me a whole new way of looking at the world. For senior leaders like myself, it is all-too-easy to become consumed by the day job and to blow challenges out of proportion. Studying alongside people from other sectors and industries really helps to put things in perspective and to witness new ways of dealing with situations. One poignant moment for me was watching one of my course mates from the medical sector cut short an online study meeting during the working day to deal with a suspected case of cardiac arrest. From that moment on, I realised that however tough my job may be, I am not facing life-and-death decisions and have since developed a resilience that will see me through the rest of my career.
This National Apprenticeship Week I therefore want to say a big thank you to my board of trustees and particularly our Chair at London Higher, Professor Amanda Broderick, who encouraged me to embark on this invaluable leadership development journey. I want to say thank you to the apprenticeship programme team at City St George’s for pushing me out of my comfort zone and instilling in me a newfound confidence in my own leadership abilities. And above all, I want to thank my fellow Level 7 degree apprentices whose experiences and perspectives have taught me more than textbook ever could and will continually remind me to see things differently.
Now, there’s just the small hurdle of a dissertation to write before June…
In case you missed them, don’t forget to check out part 1, part 2 and part 3 of Diana’s ‘Diary of a Degree Apprentice’!
