Microsoft To Create 1,000 London Apprenticeships
Young unemployed people will become tech support apprentices at Microsoft, says Boris Johnson
Microsoft is to create 1,000 apprenticeship opportunities in London by 2014, London mayor Boris Johnson announced on Monday.
Johnson announced the scheme during the launch event of the London Apprenticeships Campaign, which is designed to provide work opportunities for 20,000 young people in the capital.
Britain Works
The apprenticeships are part of Microsoft’s own jobs programme, Britain Works, which it launched in 2009 to provide 500,000 jobs by 2012.
The London apprenticeships are in addition to the 4,000 apprenticeships Microsoft promised in January. They will draw on Microsoft’s network of 5,400 small and medium-sized enterprise IT partners in London, according to the company.
Microsoft said that an IT company might for example take on a young unemployed person as a technical support apprentice.
Training
Technical support apprentices will receive training for a Microsoft-focused Advanced Apprenticeship (level 3) from QA, a training company based in Slough.
Microsoft said it has already begun training about 300 technical support apprentices across the UK. The company said it is also looking into training apprentices in technical sales and software development.
Apprencticeships may become popular as the costs of university education rise. Skills minister John Hayes helped IBM launch an apprentice scheme in November, and BT is using apprentices to meet the timetable for its big roll out of fibre-optic networks.
In London, Boris Johnson and prime minister David Cameron envisage a post-Olympics tech city. the pair have wooed Twitter, and Cisco signed up last week for the East London Tech City.
