Guides

How apprenticeships and vocational training actually work — pay, applying, funding, and what is different in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Getting started

The whole process, start to finish: what an apprenticeship actually is, where the vacancies are, and what to do in the six weeks before you apply.

Intermediate, advanced, higher, degree — what the numbers mean, what you need to start each one, and which is right for you.

Apprenticeships work differently in each nation, and differently again in Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. Here is what changes and where to…

There is no upper age limit. What changes when you are 25, 35 or 50, how to manage the pay drop, and why employers often prefer older apprentices.

Functional Skills, level 1 courses, traineeships and the trades that genuinely do not ask. A practical route map if school did not go well.

The legal minimum, what employers really pay, when your pay jumps, and why the training costs you nothing.

You are an employee with a contract. Here is what you are entitled to, and what to do when an employer is not playing fair.

What employers look for, what makes a CV survive the first cut, and the specific things to say when you have no experience.

What actually happens, the questions that come up every time, and how the practical tests work.

An honest comparison of the three main routes into a trade, including which one to take when you cannot get an apprenticeship.

The cards that get you through the gate, what they cost, who pays, and the order to get them in.

What you actually need in year one, roughly what it costs, and how not to waste money you do not have.

When to make the jump, what it costs to set up, CIS and tax, insurance, and the parts of running a business nobody teaches you.