Tech Industry Gold is a new accreditation, designed to point employers and prospective apprentices to programmes that deliver top-quality learning and development. This provides employer validation of QA’s unrivalled suite of IT and Technology Apprenticeships across IT systems and networking, software and web development, and data and business IT.

The course standards have been set by employers and created to ensure that participants develop the blend of technical, business, and interpersonal skills that are much in demand in the workplace. Organisations across the tech sector have laid down the programmes, facilitated by e-skills UK – the employer body for technology skills.

Helen West, Head of Skills Development, e-skills UK, says, "The awarding of Tech Industry Gold accreditation to an apprenticeships provider shows that their services satisfy the needs of the UK’s future IT workforce. QA Apprenticeships is the first to achieve the new standard, as their programmes show clear attention and responsiveness to the requirements of the UK’s hiring IT employers."

During the accreditation of QA Apprenticeships, an employer panel highlighted the following strengths:

• "a strategic, market-led approach, with clear senior management commitment to the quality and responsiveness of apprenticeship delivery"
• "support for employers, with flexible offers which can be packaged to meet individual employer needs"
• "thorough processes to engage employers and apprentices from the start"
• "staff who were clearly committed to the company vision of apprenticeship best-practice"
• "the evidence of, and a clear commitment to, continuous improvement".

For employers, the Tech Industry Gold accreditation for apprenticeships promises to make it easy to give their new recruits the highest-quality development programmes. Such training will boost apprentices’ productivity quicker and, with firm backing from the tech sector, aims to attract the best and brightest young people to a proven career route.