Looking to upskill your existing employees into more senior roles within your business?

Gloucestershire College's Level 4 Network Engineer Apprenticeship programme provides a specialised training route for your current employees, with the next cohort due to start in April.

The programme delivers a high level of technical skills and knowledge, ideal for aspiring network consultants and architects within your organisation. In order to complete this programme, apprentices should have experience of working in IT previously or in their current job role.

This apprenticeship standard is designed to provide your business with qualified network engineers who can design, install, maintain and support communication networks within your organisation and give technical advice and guidance on network configuration, cloud, network administration and monitoring tools.

The apprenticeship will develop competencies including:

• Designing networks from a defined specification

• Installing and configuring network components

• Optimising the performance of the network systems and performance

• Applying diagnostic tools and techniques to identify the causes of network problems

• Applying structured approaches to troubleshooting network issues

• Integrating network-related software into existing systems

• Logging and responding to network service calls

Apprentices will work towards professional CompTIA Network+ and CompTIA Server+ qualifications as part of their apprenticeship.

Gloucestershire College IT and cyber apprentices are grouped in exclusive cohorts with fellow apprentices from other like-minded businesses. The theory of the IT and cyber programmes is delivered in block release on campus, supported by the college's team of expert assessors and trainers who visit apprentices in their place of work to help them put the theory into practice.

• If your company has less than 50 employees and you take on a 16 to 18-year-old, you are entitled to receive the training completely free of charge.

• If you are not a levy payer, (your wage bill is less than £3 million) you will contribute just five per cent of the total cost of your apprenticeship training, the government will pay the remaining 95 per cent.

• If you pay the apprenticeship levy, the college can support you to maximise your levy strategy and make the most of funding on offer. You can use your levy funds to bring in new talent to the business or upskill existing employees and help reduce skills gaps.

The Level 4 Network Engineer Apprenticeship cohort starts in April 2021.

Contact the Business Hub team today to register your interest in this programme: business.hub@gloscol.ac.uk or call 01452 563400.