Scottish Apprenticeship Week 2023

It’s Scottish Apprenticeship Week and UHI North Highland, UHI Outer Hebrides and UHI West Highland are celebrating their talented modern apprentices and partnership with local employers.

Collectively, the three colleges deliver training to more than 280 modern apprentices with expertise in areas including aquaculture, gamekeeping, engineering, health and social care, and hospitality.

UHI Outer Hebrides, UHI North Highland and UHI West Highland will merge in August 2023 to form UHI North, West and Hebrides, pending Scottish Government approval. Together, they have ambitions to grow their work-based learning and apprenticeship numbers.

With 9000 students, 600 staff and 19 learning centres and campuses across the North and West Highlands, Skye, and Outer Hebrides, UHI North, West and Hebrides will become one of the largest partners in UHI, covering 70% of Scotland’s coastline and an area nearly the size of Wales.

UHI North, West and Hebrides will have a key role to play in supporting the UHI partnership and its growing apprenticeship offer across the region, which has made it one of the largest collective providers of Foundation, Modern and Graduate Apprenticeship in Scotland.

Lydia Rohmer, Principal Designate of UHI North, West and Hebrides, said: “By coming together, we will have the combined expertise, capacity, and resource to deliver a much wider range of apprenticeship frameworks across the North and West Highlands, Skye, and Outer Hebrides, which, up until now, might not have been viable to deliver as individual colleges. This gives us the potential to expand delivery of the likes of aquaculture, gamekeeping and engineering. We’re particularly keen to work with local employers to see how we can make apprenticeship delivery more sustainable through more work-based and localised training, digital technology, and reduced travel for apprentices.”

Scottish Apprenticeship Week shines a light on the vital role apprenticeships play in supporting people, employers, and the economy. Apprenticeship frameworks are a set of industry qualifications, designed to provide the skills and knowledge required to undertake a job role. Apprentices work, earn and learn at the same time.