Careers Advice

During your apprenticeship training, or when you have become qualified, you may want to know what more you can do - either learning new skills in a different subject or gaining higher-level skills by taking a course at a college or university. While you are training, your training provider has a duty to provide you with information, advice and guidance, including help with what you can do next. However, not all do this.

There are other people that you can go to for help but it does depend on your age:

Under 20 - If you are under 20 you can gain careers advice from any branch of Connexions in your local town. In 2008 Connexions changed to local authority control, but the Connexions brand is still currently in use. Click here for a page showing all Connexions offices in the region. You will be able to talk to qualified careers advisors about your options.

You may also be able to get help from one of the Aimhigher projects in your local area - use the map in the Regional Information section to find out what’s available near you.

You will also find a lot of higher-level courses listed on this website. Should you want more specific advice about the higher-level courses that you could take, we would be pleased to help or to direct you to someone who is better placed to advise you. Please go to enquiries@apprentice-forward.org.uk.

You will also find a number of links to careers websites on this website with description of what they can offer as well as this project’s rating of them.

Over 19 - If you are over 19 it is unlikely that you would be able to get careers advice from Connexions as they do not normally work with your age group. However, you can still go to your local Connexions office and access any careers information that they may have. But they will not be able to offer you any one-to-one advice

The Government has an adult service called Nextstep that is available to all those aged over 19, or those who are 18 or 19 and have been referred by the local Jobcentre Plus. Nextstep used to only be available to adults who did not yet possess a level 2 qualification, but this has now changed.

To find your local office click here. Then click on the menu item on the left entitled ‘Finding your nearest nexstep centre.

There are also a number of other possibilities:

• If your training provider is a college they will have trained guidance personnel who can offer advice to you - you may also be able to use the service if you are with an independent provider but attend the college for your technical certificate. There may be some bias towards the college’s own courses but trained personnel should be able to provide independent advice.
• There is a national service, which may be able to help you. It used to be provided by Learn Direct but is now part of the Direct.Gov website. It can be accessed by telephone (0800 100 900) or by e-mail. The site, which also shows a large number of job profiles explaining what various jobs entail, can be found by clicking here.
• There are also a number of national websites that provide a range of help, from writing CVs to presentation skills, etc. Click here to take you to the page that provides you will various links with a rating for each site.
• You can also approach colleges and universities directly if you think you know what you want to do. Most have dedicated careers advisers who can offer advice and guidance about their institution's courses, as well as more general help with future planning for prospective students. They may also be able to tell you if their institution will accept the Advanced Apprentice onto their courses, although this may require the input of an admissions or course tutor.

If you want to get advice about appropriate higher-level courses, you can forward your query to the project via enquiries@apprentice-forward.org.uk.

If we are unable to help we will forward your query to someone who is better placed to advise you.