Winners: Apprenticeship Career Path of the Year

NCC Achieve success at the St Helens Chamber Apprenticeship Awards Evening!

NCC were invited to attend the St Helens Chamber Apprenticeship Awards evening with many other local businesses to celebrate the achievements of young people from the area who have gained their qualifications with the support of the Chamber.

During the evening, NCC were also celebrating winning one of four Awards given out by the Chamber; our employee, Joshua Swann, was selected for an Award – ‘Apprenticeship Career Path of the Year’.

Josh started at NCC in October 2011, initially on an eight week placement and was referred to NCC from the Job Centre. At the time Josh was working as a scaffolder in his father’s business, winter was approaching and he decided he wanted to work in an office. Josh had ambitions about working in a finance role, unfortunately, NCC could not offer anything in this area but Josh gladly took up an offer of becoming an apprentice studying Business and Administration. During the apprenticeship Josh became conversant in the administration processes applied by NCC and took on his own work area and also worked as part of the team.

Once Josh had completed his Business and Administration apprenticeship, we felt that he had more to offer to our company. It was decided to give Josh an appointment in our IT department and to provide an opportunity to extend his knowledge. Josh has since gone on to complete his ITQ Level 2 and level 3 and has ambition to undertake a degree at Edge Hill University. We hope that Josh is accepted and decides to complete his degree on a part time basis which will mean that he can also stay at NCC.

Josh initially worked alongside a colleague who managed the IT functions, Josh now coordinates NCC’s IT, including: telecoms, servers, photocopiers, computer peripherals/consumables along with our Moodle online system which caters for around 15000 new learners per year. Josh is certainly an asset to NCC.
Over the past number of years we have seen/interviewed/employed many young people who have undertaken an apprenticeship in a number of different disciplines with NCC. Josh definitely needed to complete an apprenticeship, we are really pleased that this was with NCC. Josh is very personable and will do well in whatever he sets his mind to. It has only been a relatively short time period since Josh joined NCC , Josh now heads up our IT department and takes responsibility to keep our business at the forefront of technology thus ensuring business continuity and development.

Josh will undoubtedly be able to go to University in the future, I do hope that we able to retain the skills he has developed during his time at NCC.
NCC has been supporting the apprenticeship development programme for over six years and during this time has seen many young people achieve their qualifications and gain employment. The support and training provided by the Chamber to our apprentices has been invaluable, similarly, the ability of NCC to provide good quality placements has to be a factor in the success of the young people and a significant benefit for all concerned. At NCC we are extremely pleased that we can provide opportunity and that talented young people are able to benefit from the learning experience and achieve their qualifications. NCC certainly recognises the work involved with apprenticeships and feel privileged that we can develop young people and give them a career start whilst identifying and honing their skills and abilities.