Michelle’s early starts help share the Oxfordshire Apprenticeships message

The Oxfordshire Apprenticeships team have been taking their message out to the county’s businesses, notching up 22 different networking event visits inside the first two months of the year!

The whirlwind tour by Michelle Howie, who took up the challenge of getting round county business networking groups for Oxfordshire Apprenticeships, has taken her from Banbury to Wantage, and Chipping Norton to Thame, covering eight of Oxfordshire’s towns and 16 locations in all.

Michelle made direct contact with more than 150 businesses at the events, and passed information about how Oxfordshire Apprenticeships can help them to many more who attended. Michelle says: “More employers than ever are seeing the benefits of taking on apprentices in Oxfordshire and we wanted to share that message with as many of the smaller businesses that typically attend networking events. It was a lot of early starts in a short period of time but great to be able to spread the word about Oxfordshire Apprenticeships and the help they can give to make recruiting apprentices easy for employers.”

Sarah Cullimore, Skills Funding & Commissioning Manager, Oxfordshire County Council, says: “We’ve seen really encouraging increases in the number of local companies who are using Apprenticeships to recruit the skilled workers they need for the coming years. And because government funding is available in many cases, those companies are benefiting from lower overall training and recruitment costs. Businesses are also seeing how apprenticeships can help to grow their own talent and how rewarding it can be to watch them progress from trainee to being a key part of their team. Apprenticeship training is available for hundreds of job roles and is flexible to suit the needs of the employer.”

About Oxfordshire Apprenticeships: Oxfordshire Apprenticeships is a unique partnership project funded through the Oxfordshire City Deal  that works with employers, training providers, schools, colleges, potential apprenticeship candidates of all ages, and other partners across Oxfordshire.  Oxfordshire Apprenticeships aims to raise awareness and increase the uptake, quality and diversity of Apprenticeships and Traineeships to support the local economy.

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