Figures released by the National Apprenticeship Service has found that there has been a dramatic increase in the number of people taking apprenticeships in the financial services industry.
In the past year there has been a 233 per cent increase in the number of people starting apprenticeships within the financial services industry. In the 2010/11 academic year 210 people started; this figure increased to 700 in the 2011/12 year.
However, even though there has been a dramatic increase in the number of financial services apprentices there are still relatively few apprentices for this sector. With an estimated 4% of the UK workforce being employed in financial services, apprentices are hugely under represented.
Progress is however being made as a number of UK banks are launching their own schemes, HSBC and Barclays already have programmes with Lloyds expected to launch a scheme later this year and RBS is currently in talks with the National Apprenticeship Service.
yesMinister Comment
Despite there being no official data it would be interesting to see how many internships programmes (especially unpaid) currently run in the financial services industry.
