Mulberry #BlazeATrail with their Leather Craftsperson #Apprenticeship #NAW2019

There’s so much more to apprenticeships than you might think and National Apprenticeship Week (NAW) provides a great opportunity to celebrate what they have to offer.

NAW takes place this year from Monday 4 to Friday 8 March. The Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (the Institute) will be drawing attention to a different apprenticeship each day.

Each of these apprenticeships is in an area where employers had identified skills shortages and the Institute worked with these employers to set up high-quality apprenticeships. To demonstrate the breadth of opportunity apprenticeships now offer, these range from entry level two right up to degree level.

We will be highlighting apprenticeships from Level 2 to Level 6/7 over the week starting on Monday with the Level 2 Leather Craftsperson apprenticeship.

Monday – Leather Craftsperson – Mulberry

We recently visited Mulberry in Somerset to meet and video their apprentices.

In 2005 we recognised that the factory was facing the prospect of a skills shortage with more than 50% of workers over 50, and 13% over 65.  With plans to expand the factory, we needed to secure our future by reducing the skills shortage and rebalance the age distribution.  This was the inception of Mulberry’s apprenticeship scheme.

We are passionate about ensuring that the craft of leatherworking is handed down to future generations of craftspeople and believe that our apprenticeship has a positive impact on the business, the individual and the community.

In the thirteen years since its inception, more than 90 apprentices have completed the programme. Some of which have gone on to apply their skills and knowledge in different roles across the business such as; Product Development, Planning and Implementation.

One of our Leather Goods Manufacturing apprentices from 2013, Harrison Malik is now Mulberry’s Development Technician and has represented the Company at special events internationally.