2024 marks a milestone year for Early Careers at Coca-Cola Europacific Partners as we celebrate a decade since the introduction of our company-wide apprenticeship programme. What started as a small cohort of five engineering apprentices has grown to a 177-strong group that spans multi sectors, including Supply Chain, Logistics, Field Sales, Business Administration and Legal. National Apprenticeship Week marks the perfect time to reflect on how far we’ve come, while looking at opportunities for this space to evolve further.
We’ve been on a mission to ensure that early careers opportunities are open to all demographics and backgrounds from day one. The last ten years have been filled with a multitude of learnings and adaptations as we continue to strive towards achieving this goal.
The UK Government has set a target of a 67% completion rate amongst those that enter an apprenticeship programme1. Yet in England the completion rate is 53%2. While many factors could play a role in this rate, we’re noticing that functional skills (English and Maths qualifications) can be a significant barrier for many completing apprenticeships, and could be playing a part in this lag.
