Blog: Take your new year’s resolution to the next T-Level

As 2024 gets underway and you’re thinking about your resolutions for the year ahead, here’s a really important area for your consideration – what you will do this year to help the next generation into engineering and technology careers?

One of the most tangible ways that employers (in England) can help, and benefit their business at the same time, is by offering industry placements for students taking T Levels. We’ve estimated that students could need as many as 43,500 industry placements by 2024/2025 for engineering, design and digital T Levels.

You may already be familiar with T Levels – if not, here’s a refresher. They’re a relatively new technical qualification that has been specifically designed to address skills needs, with a highly relevant curriculum created with input from employers of all sizes. The 2-year course for post-16 students combines classroom learning, which includes theory and practical skills, with hands-on training through a 45-day industry placement, which can be offered quite flexibly and tailored to suit employers. T Levels were designed to enable students to enter employment or move onto apprenticeships whilst keeping open the option of going to university, so students finishing T Levels have the knowledge and skills they need to hit the ground running in their careers.

And T Levels offer a host of benefits for employers too.

First, you will be contributing directly to training the next generation. Employers should feel really good about this - it makes an enormous difference to individual young people, and also helps address national skills shortages. We have great feedback from employers on how much they enjoy offering work experience to students and T level placements are an expanded version of this. T Level students are often the youngest people in a workplace and bring fresh perspectives and new, innovative ideas, which can help businesses to stay ahead of the curve.

We are also seeing that many young people move onto work with their placement hosts after their T Levels or become apprentices with them. T Levels therefore give businesses a new talent pool to recruit from, enabling employers to get to know potential employees or apprentices before recruiting them. What’s more, with students gaining valuable industry experience during their placement, T Level students are equipped to be productive from the start.

So it really is a case of win-win for students and employers.

We know there has been some confusion with the government’s recent announcement about the Advanced British Standard (ABS), and what this will mean for educational pathways into engineering. The proposed ABS framework enables students to select from a broad range of academic and technical qualifications. T Levels fit nicely into the ABS framework, so please don’t be put off getting involved because you think T Levels won’t be around. The ABS initiative reflects a broader desire to modernise and adapt educational outcomes to meet the evolving demands of the workforce – very much aligning with the ethos of T Levels which remain an important route into engineering and technology careers for the foreseeable future.

If this sounds at all interesting to you, please visit the T Levels website for employers. It has everything you need to know, including how to offer an industry placement. Also keep an eye out for ‘T level Thursday’ during National Apprenticeship Week next month (5^th – 11^th February) – which aims to raise awareness of T Levels and showcase success stories and opportunities.

Many thanks to all of you already offering T Levels. Please do support T Level Thursday by sharing your experiences of T Levels and spreading the word about their benefits. You could also consider working with local schools and colleges to promote T Levels to their students by, for example, offering to give talks to students or host open days.

If you’re not yet able to offer T Level placements, providing work experience opportunities are another important way to excite and inspire young people about a career in engineering and technology (and might ease you and them into T Levels in the future!). And of course, offering apprenticeships is another hugely important way to support young people to start their engineering and technology careers.

By joining the growing number of employers offering T Levels placements and work experience, businesses like yours can play a critical role in helping secure the future of engineering and technology in the UK. Let’s make 2024 a year that really counts.