National Apprenticeship Week

As we celebrate this year’s National Apprenticeship Week, we look back on another year’s successes and highlight the journey our trainees undertake at Concertus.

At present, we have eleven apprentices on courses ranging from BSc (Hons) Quantity Surveying to BA (Hons) Civil Engineering in both our Ipswich and Matlock offices.

Offering opportunities has long been a part of Concertus’ business model. As we expand into new frameworks and project pipelines, our employee numbers have reflected this by doubling and tripling from approximately 60 in 2013 to 180 now. This provides us the opportunity to develop our employee development and progression opportunities too, of which apprenticeships play a pivotal role. Whilst it sounds cliché, as a design consultancy focused on Exceptional Service, as we expand our people stay central to what we do.

Last year we featured Theo Warren as our Trainee Building Services Engineer navigating his Level 4 HNC in Building Services Engineer remotely amidst the coronavirus pandemic. One year later, Theo is back attending face-to-face lectures onsite at London South Bank University but now attends a BEng Building Services Engineering course as Intermediate Building Services Engineer. Well deserving of this promotion, Theo consistently works above and beyond, taking the lead and using his initiative to design projects from conception to completion such as Central Ipswich Primary School. With new trainees joining the team in September 2021, we are extremely proud to look back on how employees like Theo progress their careers and uphold our exceptional culture.

Also continuing with their ongoing studies are Elliott Furniss and Martin Tingay. As Intermediate Building Surveyor and Building Surveyor respectively, Elliott and Martin are currently studying Year 3 and 4 of their Level 6 Chartered Surveyor degree apprenticeships. Elliott and Martin hold significant responsibilities at work such as managing large programmes of Fire Risk Assessment works whilst achieving impressive academic results in their studies. Apprentices like Elliott and Martin support the transfer of the most recent industry practice and updates into our teams whilst progressing on a fulfilling career path, thus supporting our workforce planning and business growth.

This year we welcomed six new apprentices, including Sophie Beales as Trainee HR Administrator. Joining in April 2021, Sophie won Exceptional New Starter in our employee awards, a testament to her unlimited positive energy and dedication to her colleagues since joining Concertus. Taking ownership of business-critical processes such as our DBS compliance alongside her responsibilities for employee welfare and induction process, her role represents how an apprenticeship provides both invaluable industry experience for the student and significant contribution for the business.

Many of our apprentices take this first exciting step for their career following successful work experience placements with us. As we start preparing for the upcoming students joining us for one or two week placements from Spring onwards, we look forward to sharing our apprenticeship stories with you next year!