BBC announces 5,000 digital traineeships

Up to 5,000 young unemployed people will be offered BBC Traineeships to help them boost their digital skills and help them get a foot on the jobs ladder.

Published: 5 March 2015
Our new Make it Digital Traineeship is a hugely ambitious partnership, one we hope will unlock Britain’s digital potential and create genuinely life-changing opportunities for young people.
— Tony Hall, BBC Director-General

The nine-week traineeship:

  • Includes training from the world-renowned BBC Academy
  • Teaches basic digital skills, such as creating simple websites and short videos for the web
  • Gets young people ready for work with employability skills and a work placement
  • Is the largest traineeship of its kind - a major partnership between the BBC, Department for Work and Pensions and Skills Funding Agency, supported by a range of other organisations

Tony Hall, BBC Director-General, announced the BBC Make it Digital Traineeship today, and it will launch around the country in summer 2015. It will form a key part of the BBC’s flagship Make it Digital initiative, which will be unveiled in full later this month. Make it Digital aims to inspire a new generation to get creative with coding, programming and digital technology.

Lord Hall said: “We’ve already hit our target of having apprentices make up one per cent of our workforce. I’m immensely proud of that, but we need to keep on showing leadership, and keep on bringing people together in a way which only the BBC can.

“Our new Make it Digital Traineeship is a hugely ambitious partnership, one we hope will unlock Britain’s digital potential and create genuinely life-changing opportunities for young people.”

It will be the largest traineeship of its kind owing to an ambitious partnership between the BBC, Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and Skills Funding Agency, supported by a range of other organisations. The scope and unprecedented scale is expected to create a more diverse, better skilled digital workforce, and offer potentially life-changing opportunities for many young people.

The Traineeship aims to grow basic level digital skills and prepare trainees for employment or progression into apprenticeships. The programme has been designed to be highly relevant to the small and medium business sector, where we know these skills are in short supply across the UK.

The programme is funded through the Adult Skills Budget, run by the Skills Funding Agency, and will be delivered by high-quality external training providers around the country. The content has been created by the BBC Academy, working with the Tech Partnership, drawing on existing BBC training and involving major brands to help inspire Trainees in a nine-week course. There will be six weeks' classroom-based training in two broad areas:

  • Basic digital skills - such as planning social media campaigns by deconstructing Radio 1’s Wrecking Ball campaign, building simple websites and creating short videos for the web
  • Employability skills - including how to give and receive feedback, using The Great British Bake Off. Other key skills include budgeting, basic project management, team working, English and Maths

The final stage of the Traineeship is a three-week structured work placement, with the focus on selecting companies who are likely to require basic-level digital skills. These will be sourced with the help of the Tech Partnership, the Federation of Small Businesses, the National Apprenticeship Service and other partners at a local level. Those who show strong potential will be encouraged to apply for a BBC Apprenticeship.

Currently in pilot phase in Birmingham, the Traineeship is due to be rolled out nationally in the summer of 2015. The DWP’s nationwide Jobcentre Plus network will play a crucial role talent-spotting and identifying suitable candidates, who will be invited to take part by their Jobcentre Work Coaches.

DT

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