SWANSEA APPRENTICE ENCOURAGES OTHERS TO PURSUE THEIR CAREER THROUGH AN AMAZON APPRENTICESHIP

During National Apprenticeship Week 2021 (8^th to 14^th February), an apprentice from Swansea is calling on local people and his fellow colleagues to pursue the career they have always wanted by applying now for one of over 1,000 new full-time Amazon apprenticeships available. 

Recruitment has started for 25 different apprenticeship schemes ranging from engineering to broadcast production, creative digital design to health, safety and environment technician. 100 degree-level apprenticeships are available in automation engineering, project management, software development and chartered management.

Over 500 new apprenticeships will be offered to Amazon’s existing workforce, providing opportunities to retrain and gain new skills leading to an exciting new career path. Apprenticeships exclusively for Amazon employees range from a team leader through to a coaching practitioner.

The roles pay a minimum of £9.70 p/h in Swansea up to £30,000 a year for degree-level apprenticeships.

In addition to being fully-funded, apprentices also receive a comprehensive benefits package, including private medical insurance, life assurance, income protection, subsidised meals and an employee discount – which combined are worth more than £700 annually – as well as a company pension plan.  

The new apprentices will join current apprentices already working at Amazon Swansea. The current Amazon apprenticeship schemes have attracted recruits from a range of different backgrounds from a former barista, footballer and photographer, to former military veterans and nurses. Throughout the last year, people have also joined Amazon from construction, customer services, health care, hospitality and sales industries.

 One such apprentice is Nathan Martin from Swansea, a Business Improvement Techniques apprentice working at Amazon in Swansea.

Before applying for the Amazon apprenticeship, Nathan worked in various sales companies in team lead and product manager roles, but never stayed in one particular job for too long due to the lack of opportunities for progression. He applied for the apprenticeship so that he could use it as a stepping-stone to get ahead in the business. He would love to be an area manager and the apprenticeship seemed like the perfect opportunity to kick-start that journey. He appreciates that Amazon really invests time, money and effort into helping people develop in their careers and as people.

Nathan said: “The Amazon apprenticeship programme really appealed to me because of the opportunities it offers. For anyone who is considering doing an apprenticeship, I’d advise them to do it, because it’s an opportunity you don’t get with most other companies. Amazon really invests time, money and effort into helping you develop in your career and as a person.”

Christopher Law, General Manager at Amazon in Swansea, said: “An Amazon apprenticeship offers an exciting career path, creating opportunities within our local community in Swansea and helping our own employees retrain and gain new skills at a time when investing in people and jobs has never been more important.”

The 1,000 apprenticeships add to Amazon’s continued commitment to creating jobs and opportunities to learn new skills across the UK. Amazon created 10,000 new permanent jobs in the UK in 2020 alone, and employs more than 40,000 people in some of the most advanced workplaces of their kind in the world with competitive pay, processes and systems to ensure the wellbeing and safety of all employees.

Apprentice programmes last between 14 months and four years and a typical apprenticeship combines theoretical learning with hands-on training, enabling participants to obtain qualifications and degrees and earn money in the process.

Once qualified, apprentices will have the potential to work across Amazon’s UK sites including fulfilment centres, delivery stations, sortation centres and the company’s UK head offices in London and Manchester and the three development centres in Edinburgh, Cambridge and London.

Amazon also offers employees Career Choice, an innovative programme which pre-pays 95% of tuition for courses in high-demand fields, up to £8,000 over four years, regardless of whether the skills are relevant to a career at Amazon.

Amazon provides opportunities to improve existing skills or learn new ones through internal career progression opportunities such as cross-training, transferring to a different department and promotion into a managerial role.

Applications are now open for Amazon’s apprenticeship programme. For more information, visit: www.amazonapprenticeships.co.uk