Best apprenticeships to kick-start your career in construction

More focus than ever has now been placed on apprenticeships and Graduate Schemes as an alternative to staying in full-time education, encouraging more on-the-job experience and ‘earn as you learn’.

The government launched the Apprenticeship levy in 2017 which has encouraged businesses with an annual turnover of £3 million to invest in apprenticeships a lot more. This has had an extremely positive effect and the number of engineering apprenticeships available to young people and the uptake of these apprenticeships has dramatically increased. In an industry where apprenticeships are already popular, the Levy is providing new opportunities to attract fresh talent and improve diversity.

The best construction apprenticeships

As the UK government continues to propose large-scale infrastructure projects, it’s clear that young engineers are needed now more than ever to facilitate the change of Britain’s landscape.

We look at some of the best construction apprenticeships available to help you take the first steps of your career:

Balfour Beatty

Balfour Beatty describes their apprenticeship scheme as thinking “beyond the hard hat, beyond stereotypes, beyond ground-breaking and look forward to a future full of unlimited opportunity, infinite possibilities and far-reaching impact”.

Earning while you learn, you’ll get lots of development opportunities, mentoring and support from across the organisation – as well as the chance to make an impact on the world around you.

By completing this apprenticeship you’ll gain exposure to some pretty amazing projects too, like HS2, Hinkley Point C, Perth Transport Futures and the Manchester Engineering Campus Development project.​

Costain Group

The engineering apprenticeship with Costain offers a structured development programme which leads to a Certificated Apprenticeship. The programme features one day of college study and four days working towards your qualification (NVQ Level 3) by gaining on-the-job experience.

Costain provides two pay reviews a year for each apprentice, on-going support and exciting career development with what has been found to be one of the UK’s ‘Most Admired’ companies

The British Army

If you are looking to develop your skills whilst travelling the world then this one’s for you. The Army has one of the largest Apprenticeship programmes in the UK with 18,000 young people enrolled and over 8,000 apprentices passing their training each year. Better still, the Army Construction Apprenticeship Programme is part of a nationally recognised scheme, giving you a once in a lifetime opportunity to work for an employer while learning relevant work-based skills.

An apprenticeship with the army can open new doors as 98% of recruits finish with qualifications that they can build on during and after their Army career

Crossrail and HS2

Building a railway requires a lot of construction manpower and with two large rail construction projects underway there are plenty of jobs in the field available at your fingertips.

It is believed that the cutting-edge HS2 project will create approximately 2,000 apprenticeships and will give young people the opportunity to work on one of the biggest and most complex construction projects to date.

Crossrail is big on producing a skills legacy for the industry whilst furthering the careers of its apprentices. A number of opportunities are available across engineering and construction, which will give apprentices high-quality skills training, a paid salary and a relevant qualification upon completion

Visit our dedicated HS2 page to keep up to date with the latest news and views from the project.​

Morson’s apprenticeship pledge

Morson are champions of apprenticeships, we believe that they are a fantastic way to get both young people into employment and help professionals transition into new careers. Check out the video below where we chat to our apprentices at Morson Projects to find out what doing an apprenticeship is really like.

Looking to kickstart your career in construction? Take a look at our jobs by visiting our website here.