Edinburgh Napier University

  The introduction of the degree apprenticeship presents opportunities for students to pursue a degree while working in paid positions relevant to their studies. Within this model, employers take an active role in recruitment, funding, and degree content whereas traditionally, these roles were primarily the domain of universities. With this change in the role of employers, the study aims to identify IT sector employer requirements from apprentices as expressed in the job advertisements. It also aims to map how the advertised jobs align with the skills described in the apprenticeships’ standards and frameworks. The resulting analysis would provide critical insight into the marketing and recruitment of apprenticeship degrees via content analysis of job advertisement data for IT-related apprenticeships. These data will support future research on apprenticeship, such as investigating the alignment of adverts and marketing with actual roles, standardization of apprenticeship programs, and alignment of the roles and responsibilities of employers and universities. Specifically this study aims to answer the following research questions:
1. What skills do they employers look for in IT apprentices?
2. What are the job responsibilities advertised?
3. What is the alignment between the advertised job tasks and expected learning outcomes as specified in apprenticeship standards?