This Apprenticeship could find you working in an accounts department, helping a business or organisation manage their money properly. Running a business involves a lot of financial activities, from expenses and bills to taxes and payroll.

Accountants keep track of all these things and more to make sure that businesses – both large and small – manage their money properly. Having a business brain, as well as a way with numbers, is a good start if you want to work in accounting. Job roles in accountancy vary. Depending on whether they’re keeping track of one person’s or a global corporation’s finances, there are several things that accountants can do to help their clients’ businesses. This variety often makes it an attractive profession to pursue. You could work in literally any industry, and apply your skills to any business type – from large public sector companies and major corporations, to football clubs and small media firms. Whatever type of company you want to work for, they will always need the services of an accountant.

Accounting itself is a highly skilled profession, with accounting staff working at many different levels. Apprentices will take the accounting qualification relevant to their Apprenticeship level. Apprentices who qualify as accounting technicians might work as accounts assistants, credit control clerks, accounts clerks, or finance assistants, all helping accountants to keep financial records and prepare accounts. You’ll learn how to balance accounts, process invoices and payments, complete VAT returns, and help prepare financial statements and reports. Depending on whether you work for a large or small company, you could be specialising in one area – like sales – or doing all these tasks as well as handling banking and petty cash.

If you complete the Higher Apprenticeship, you can progress to full membership of the Association of Accounting Technicians. You could then complete a professional accountancy qualification with a chartered body such as ICAEW, ACCA, CIMA, CIPFA, or ICAS. Successfully completing the Higher Apprenticeship offers a fast track route onto chartered studies through exemptions from certain parts of the syllabus. The extent of these exemptions is different from body to body. This progression can lead to a specialist role in accounting. It’s also possible to enter a higher education course in a subject related to accounting, banking, insurance, or other financial services. If you’re interested in a finance career, an Apprenticeship is a great way to get into the market.

The following providers offer this specialism:

East Riding College

McArthur Dean Training

This Apprenticeship is about playing an important support role within a business or organisation.

Administrators handle the day-to-day tasks in an office and make sure things run smoothly – 97% of employers say that effective administration is essential to their business, so they do a crucial job. The term ‘administration’ covers roles that involve organising people and resources, including, executive assistants, secretaries, administration assistants, data entry clerks and office juniors. Without them, information would be hard to find, meetings would be missed and businesses would be less productive.

As a business and administration apprentice, your exact duties will depend on your employer. It’s likely that you’ll be working with a team or member of staff to handle various tasks. You may be typing up board meeting documents, putting financial information together in spreadsheets, sending the daily post, or faxing and photocopying confidential documents.

This sort of work requires a strong sense of responsibility, accuracy and attention to detail. One of the great things about business and administration is that you can work almost anywhere. With your transferable skills, you could be working in a record company or a charity. Administration roles are also an excellent starting point to move into management once you have more experience.

The following providers offer this specialism:

A4e

Bishop Burton College

Chamber Training

East Riding College

Grimsby Institute

Hull College

Hull Business Training Centre

HYA Training 

McArthur Dean Training

YH Training

Contact centres – sometimes known as 'call centres' – provide a way for people to get in touch with businesses and organisations. The contact centres industry is one of the fastest growing in the UK, with job opportunities in most urban areas. Contact centre apprentices could work for a number of businesses across a range of sectors – no matter where they end up, they’ll learn all about their employer’s services and products so they can assist customers as helpfully as possible.

On this Apprenticeship you could be working in areas like sales, information retrieval, or account management. No matter where you end up, the same sets of skills will apply: you’ll work the phones and computer systems; listen and communicate; solve problems; and work with a team in a fast-paced environment.

Employees of contact centres have to be helpful, friendly, and well informed – after all, they’re representing their company or organisation to the public. Because they spend most of their time making and/or answering calls, contact centre employees must have an excellent phone manner (and it helps if they enjoy talking to people, too). Ultimately, contact centre work is about providing the best customer service possible, a valuable skill for any apprentice.

The following providers offer this specialism:

Hull College

This Apprenticeship teaches you the skills to provide excellent customer service, and can be applied to hundreds of job roles across many different sectors, from government to telecommunications. However, most customer service apprentices work in retail, financial services, call centres, hospitality, or sport and recreation.

Good customer service is key to the success of any business or organisation. It’s one of those useful skills that’s found all over the place and covers all the extras that make a customer’s experience better. As a customer service apprentice, you’ll probably work at the front end of an employer’s business activities and regularly assist customers. Duties will vary between sectors, but in most cases you’ll be making sure that customers are dealt with in a positive, reliable and pleasant way – whether that’s by offering advice, answering questions or handling complaints.

To properly assist customers, you’ll need clear and up-to-date knowledge of your organisation’s products and services. You’ll also need to be able to communicate with all sorts of people. Completing this Apprenticeship is a way of providing evidence of skills that will serve you well in virtually any industry – so it’s a very good way to move forward, even if you’re still undecided about your future career.

The following providers offer this specialism:

A4e

Chamber Training

East Riding College

Grimsby Institute

Hull Business Training Centre

Hull College

HYA Training

McArthur Dean Training

YH Training Services

This Apprenticeship can be applied across a broad range of sectors and job roles. Good managers and team leaders are essential to the success of any business, so the skills gained on this Apprenticeship are transferable and valuable. Learning will be tailored to your industry, but it’s likely you’ll be responsible for the delivery of a service, or how other people carry out their work.

You could be working as a shift leader, charge hand, section leader, team leader, floor manager, trainee manager, deputy manager, or supervisor. On your Intermediate Level Apprenticeship in Team Leading, you’ll learn the theories of team leading and how business works. You’ll manage your own workload; lead others; work effectively with other people; and learn how to get your point across through talking and discussion with others.

On the Advanced Level Apprenticeship in Management, you’ll be able to understand the theories of management, and how to source, understand, present and explain work related figures and calculations. Depending on the focus of your job, you might learn other skills like how to allocate and check other people’s work; plan and implement change; manage a project or budget; encourage innovation; carry out operational plans; recruit staff; or develop customer service skills.

The following providers offer this specialism:

A4e

East Riding College

Grimsby Institute

Hull College

McArthur Dean Training

YH Training

Large companies employ lots of employees. It’s up to the payroll team to make sure that everyone in the company gets the right amount of money, at the right time. It’s not an easy job: payroll clerks are responsible for figuring out how much employees should get paid by adding up all their overtime, deducting enough to cover tax and national insurance payments, and taking into account things like holiday, sick pay and expenses.

Most companies pay their employees on the same day, which means that on one day each month, the payroll team has to make sure that perhaps thousands of automatic bank transfers are made accurately. If they’re not, payroll staff are the first people the employees will call. An employee’s pay is incredibly important to them, and you’ll be expected to answer queries and solve problems in an efficient, friendly and discreet manner – remember, you’ll have access to a lot of very sensitive financial records and other confidential information. Apprentices will take the payroll qualification relevant to their Apprenticeship level.

The Intermediate Level Apprenticeship will focuses on the core skills needed to work effectively in payroll. Topics covered include calculating gross and net pay and how to maintain accurate employee records.

The Advanced Level Apprenticeship builds on what has been learned on Intermediate Level Apprenticeship, introducing more complex payroll tasks – including yearend procedures. It also helps you develop effective payroll management skills. Most payroll departments are lively, office-based teams. Organisational skills are important, and while having a good grasp of numbers will help you a great deal, a methodical and attention to detail will get you even further.

The following providers offer this specialism:

McArthur Dean Training

Selling is a part of our daily activities. We sell our views, our ideas and ourselves to colleagues, clients, bosses, partners and families. And it doesn’t just stop there. We are often talking with sales people – on the street, in stores and even on the phone. Selling is a very important process – it is the lifeblood of most organisations. If they do not sell their products or services, companies can easily go out of business. They therefore make sure they recruit promising trainees, give them the best opportunities and hold their good sales people in high esteem. Good salesmanship involves helping customers to buy a product or service to meet their needs.

As a job, this involves meeting people, building relationships, addressing challenges, being creative in offering solutions and thinking independently. As these skills are relevant to many aspects of our daily lives, selling isn’t just a business skill; it’s also a valuable life skill that could help in many circumstances, from ‘selling’ your skills at a job interview to ‘selling’ your ideas during a debate.

As an Apprentice you could find yourself working in a range of sectors. You may be, for example, a sales advisor in a retail store environment, or a membership advisor in a health and fitness club.

On the Advanced Level Apprenticeship, you could take on a supervisory role as team leader and have the ability to earn higher rates of commission. Ultimately, your goal will be to sell as many of your company’s products and services as possible, while taking into consideration the interests of your clients. Customers are important, and you’ll have to seek out new customers while still looking after the current ones.

 Businesses realise the importance of salespeople – money tends to be good, most salespeople earn commission, and they can even be treated to presents or other bonuses like free holidays. In fact, a top-flight senior salesperson could command a salary of up to £100,000, plus commission. But there’s also the other side of things to consider: just because you’re selling something doesn’t mean that people want to buy it. Salespeople have to abide by ethical standards that reflect their professionalism. Their training will focus on the ability to remain calm under pressure and be able to handle rejection gracefully…with the motivation to try again when the opportunity arise.

The following providers offer this specialism:

Chamber Training