Catch up with Marcus Simmons, Apprenticeship Business Development Manager, and Sally Plant, Business Development Director here at Walbrook, in their practical 20-minute presentation on how to get more value from apprenticeships.
This presentation is for employers interested in apprenticeships, if you're a learner looking for an apprenticeship please click here.
In 20 minutes, discover how apprenticeships help you:
Close skills gaps by developing capability around the needs of your business
Grow and retain talent by giving employees clear opportunities to develop and progress
Make training budgets work harder by taking advantage of available apprenticeship funding
Build your talent pipeline by developing people into the roles your organisation needs
Choose the right pathway for different roles, career stages and business needs
Good advisers are hard to find. You need people who understand the technical detail, fit your culture and can handle tricky client talks with confidence. Financial services apprenticeships offer a practical way to grow that talent from within, and funding means they often cost far less than firms expect.
Sally Plant, Business Development Director at LIBF (Part of Walbrook Institute London), knows the value first-hand. Before joining LIBF from the CISI, she worked as a paraplanner. "I genuinely wish that this had been available to me then," she says.
Marcus Simmons leads on apprenticeships at Walbrook. He brings more than 10 years' experience in the field and has worked with over 70 local authorities. "My job is to help you understand how you can get the best out of apprenticeships," he says.
Mortgage and advice firms face real pressure. Rates and inflation are rising, and people can borrow less. Clients need advisers who can do more than recite product facts – they want someone who asks about resilience and future plans.
Sally calls apprenticeships "the deliberate talent pipeline". They let you upskill staff, bring in new starters and build a team that shares your values. For smaller firms, the set structure also means less time spent running training.
There's a recruitment benefit too. Young people are more selective about where they start their careers, and a clear pathway shows them they have a future with you.
Since the 2015 pension changes and the push for Consumer Duty, clients expect advice built around their goals. A good apprenticeship works the same way, but for learning.
"Instead of looking at one thing in isolation, like technical knowledge, which you'd normally get through a qualification, this focuses on developing the knowledge, skills and behaviours," Sally explains.
LIBF awards CeMAP and is the FCA-recognised holder of the DipFA. That puts it in a rare position. Each unit maps straight to the skills and behaviours apprentices use at work, so there are no "lumpy exams". It also allows more choice. You could, for example, add a protection module to an administrator apprenticeship.
Programmes run from Level 3, which is like A levels, to Level 6, which is degree level. The level matters less than whether the learning is new. "I've had apprentices with doctorates doing a Level 3 or a Level 4 because it's completely new knowledge for them," Marcus says.
Each programme follows the same pattern. Apprentices learn, reflect, join workshops with peers and a skills coach, then put it into practice at work. The goal, Marcus says, is to take someone from "just knowing about it" to being "competent in doing it".
This also suits anyone who has found exams hard in the past. Learning through their day-to-day role helps the knowledge stick.
Whether you want to grow an administrator into an adviser, bring fresh talent into your firm or make the most of your levy, there's a pathway to suit.
Walbrook is ready to help you develop your talent strategy. We look forward to hearing from you.