Call for more science apprenticeships in bid to plug STEM sector skills gap

As the UK’s professional body for chemical sciences, we are calling on businesses to support vocational routes into STEM jobs, following a 31% drop in national industry apprenticeship applications.

Apprenticeships play a key role in ensuring labs have the staff with the skills that they need to fulfil crucial functions.

However, data from the from the Science Industry Partnership (SIP) reveals that the uptake of science apprenticeships has declined since 2016 – an issue which has been exacerbated following the start of the pandemic in 2020.

The figures show that there were 3,150 new science apprentice starts in the academic year of 2019 to 2020, in comparison to 5,200 new starts in 2016-17.

Call to support vocational pathways

During National Apprentice Week 2022 (7th-13th February), we are calling on employers to support vocational pathways into the science industry, in a bid to recruit the next generation of scientists and help close the technical skills gap within the STEM sector.

Katie Dryden-Holt, Royal Society of Chemistry Vocational Skills Programme Manager, says: “We’ve witnessed a significant fall in apprenticeship starts within the science sector in recent years. It would be easy to attribute this decline to the outbreak of COVID-19, but this is a science-wide issue which has going on since before the pandemic.

“In parallel, there is a particular challenge with attracting and retaining people in technical roles in the UK. The only way to fill that gap is to train more people, and apprenticeships are a fantastic way to do that.

“Not only do these programmes benefit the apprentices and the companies at which they work, they add real value to local communities and the wider economy – something that is crucial as the nation rebuilds from the impact of the pandemic.”

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