Scotland exceeds apprenticeship target

Speaking at the launch of this year’s Scottish Apprenticeship Week today, Scotland’s first minister said a total of 77,402 apprenticeships had been delivered in the past three years against a target of 25,000 a year.

In April, Mr Salmond announced that the annual target will be increased to 30,000 in future years.

The figures announced today show 25,284 apprenticeships were delivered in 2013/14 with an overall achievement rate of 77 per cent. Around 7,000 apprenticeships in the past three years were in housing and construction.

Mr Salmond said: ‘I am delighted to launch the fourth annual Scottish Apprenticeship Week which gives us an excellent opportunity to promote and celebrate the great work that apprentices are doing.

‘Over 77,000 new starts is an incredible achievement and is testament to employers, training providers and, above all, our enthusiastic and talented young workforce.

‘There is no complacency as much still needs to be done to tackle youth unemployment and that is why only a matter of weeks ago I pledged to implement a year-on-year increase to 30,000 new modern apprenticeship starts each year by 2020.’

Scottish Apprenticeship Week 2014, organised by Skills Development Scotland, will see more than 120 events celebrating apprenticeships taking place from Shetland to the Borders.