ANS urges channel to pull together on apprenticeships

VAR will open up new cloud apprentice scheme to competitors in bid to ease industry skills shortage

Mancunian VAR ANS Group has urged more top channel firms to get on board with apprenticeships to help narrow the industry skills gap.

The NetApp, Cisco and VMware partner is set to train up 32 "cloud apprentices" over the next two years after securing a berth on the Employer Ownership of Skills Pilot.

Candidates will receive an equal mix of on-the-job and classroom-based training, all of which will be delivered by ANS's own staff rather than a local college.

Talking to CRN, ANS chairman Scott Fletcher (pictured) said once the scheme has proved itself, it will be opened up to the rest of the channel.

"There is no reason why we could not take this from 32 to a couple of hundred people and get commitment from other resellers to sponsor five to 10 apprentices through our academy, who then go to work for them," he said.

Fletcher argued that the government should be doing more to push apprenticeships in the IT sector, but said the model requires more employer involvement.

Until now, ANS' apprentices have been trained at external colleges but its involvement in the Employer Ownership of Skills Pilot means ANS will now have full control over how money allocated by the government for training is spent.

"The quality of training was not where we wanted it to be," Fletcher said.

"There is no way that a local college can keep pace with the speed of change in IT and by the time they have developed a course it is generally out of date. More involvement from employers in developing apprenticeships is needed."

The first year of ANS' apprenticeship will walk candidates through the basics of IT networks and general business acumin before the heavier technical training begins in year two. The first batch of 16 will start in the next couple of months, with 16 more starting in six months' time.

"It is extra hassle but it's a long-term play," Fletcher explained.

"In five years, those 32 employees will be earning us £150,000 a year in consultancy fees or working on our helpdesk," he said. "And in the shorter term, it keeps the average cost per head down as they are cheaper. You probably won't get benefits from them for 12 months abut after that there is some value and in two to three years they have real value. They are loyal to our brand and are doing the job in the way you've trained them to.

"They are also adding to the labour pool so we are helping to fix the skills shortage and reducing the upward pressure on salaries."

Fletcher said apprentices tend to be more loyal than graduates and are unlikely to defect to rivals once their training is complete, provided they are paid a fair wage and it is a good workplace.

But he urged other top resellers to follow in ANS' footsteps.

"If 20 or 30 big companies in the channel invested in apprenticeships, [the skills shortage] would not be an issue," he said. "My call to other employers is let's all get on this. If we all did 10 to 20 apprentices a year, within five years you would have a couple of thousand skilled staff in the channel you did not have before."

According to recent figures from the National Apprenticeship Service, demand for apprenticeships in the ICT sector is rising at almost twice the rate of the number of vacancies up for grabs. It was one of the most competitive sectors for which to apply, with more than 17 applications per vacancy.

A recent annual skills survey by the CBI and learning company Pearson revealed that despite recent increases, only 23 per cent of SMBs take on apprentices, compared with 88 per cent of firms with more than 5,000 employees.

But Fletcher argued that demand is not outstripping supply, at least for "quality" candidates.

"We have to promote apprentices as a real choice for education alongside the academic route," he said.

"If you go down the academic route, you struggle to get a job with a degree that may not be relevant to the industry and you're £40,000 in debt. With apprenticeships, you get on-the-job training and you're being paid to turn up to work. By the time you have finished you are already earning in the mid-20s and have no debt. Universities work for some of the professions but I do not think it really works for IT – certainly not for the channel, where it is more about on-the-job, vocational training."