It's National Apprenticeship Week and to mark the occasion we've held with an event to celebrate the 100 young people who have joined our early careers programme in the past four years.

On Wednesday we brought together some of the apprentices and graduates who have joined the business or who have completed their studies over the past four years for a special celebration event. It was the culmination of a commitment we made in 2019 to enable our colleagues to thrive to recruit 100 people into our early careers programme by March 2023. We reached that milestone in the autumn when our latest intake of apprentices and graduates joined the business; amongst them was People Team Graduate Kate Farnell.

“I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do after I left university, but then I saw the role at Bromford and the more I learned about it the more interested I got,” she said. “Knowing about the work that Bromford does as a housing association and the fact it is a public sector organisation was definitely one of the reasons I wanted to work here. But Bromford also gives you the chance to continue to learn and gain further qualifications which is great. I’ve really enjoyed my first few months and am excited to see what the next two years brings.” 

Apprentices and graduates lead Sharon Carrington added: “We’re passionate about developing young people who are just starting their careers through our graduate and apprenticeship schemes. We are very much a people business and helping people to thrive, whether that’s the customers living in our homes, or our colleagues delivering services to them, is what gets us out of bed every morning.

“It was great to bring together some of our apprentices and graduates who’ve joined us over the past four to hear how they’ve developed and the pride they have in what they achieved. It’s fantastic to have helped so many young people and we’re committed to continuing to provide a variety of opportunities for people to begin their careers with us over the years ahead.”

Last year we became a member of the 5% Club, a national group of more than 500 businesses, who are all committed to having 5% of their employees in earn and learn positions such as apprentices or graduates. And we've just started recruiting for its latest intake of graduates to take the first steps on their career this autumn.

Find out more about the graduate positions available at Bromford. Applications will close on 31 March.