Degree Apprenticeships, Placements, and Premature 9-to-5s
By Sean Colligan
As the number of young people not in education, employment or training (NEET) rises to just under a million [1], universities and employers have united in pledging universal “access to meaningful work-based learning by 2035” with the simple aim of getting “more graduates into good jobs”, including half of all undergrads by the end of the decade. The plan promises this by committing to have an “AI trailblazer” in every course—whatever that means—but much more concretely by a promise of “lifetime entitlement” to university careers services for postgraduates, and notably calls on the government to extend National Insurance contribution thresholds for under-25s to encourage more NEETs to enter the workplace [2].
Whether or not these milestones will be reached as advertised in the report by Universities UK remains to be seen. As we descend into further economic uncertainty, the National Insurance relief advocated may not be extended by a government more deficit-conscious and less able to borrow. The report’s overzealous push on artificial intelligence is also questionable, with the necessity of making students into “AI pioneers” murky at best. Isn’t it a bit silly to be pushing for universal upskilling in a technology that may not be relevant at all in someone’s course, say archaeology, or downright harmful to the career prospects of in something like software development? The Luddites of the 19th century, who tried in vain to break the new textile machines, come to mind. Or the whole tech bubble could go the other way completely and pop, which will bring the whole necessity of having these “trailblazers” in every single degree into question in the first place.
While the plan may not exactly scream future-proof, the rise of programmes like degree apprenticeships and the fierce competition for places on them may represent a synthesis of the two opposing sides of the great education debate. Tradespeople who boast of cash in hand and no debt, and students who prefer the ‘traditional’ university experience, are both placated, even if maintaining the profligate lifestyle is made a bit harder by the constraints of the working week. This is especially attractive for the quite sizeable proportion of students who opt to stay at home rather than move into accommodation in the face of rising costs. There is still much to be said for so-called ‘sandwich’ degrees with a year of professional experience, or placement year for short.
I myself am a bit biased as I’m in the middle of one, but they do similarly offer the best of both worlds in being a balance between university and working life, with a year of gainful employment as a sort of pleasantly sobering comedown from missed lectures and hungover mornings spent half out of bed. There’s certainly much more of what I consider to be the ‘proper’ university experience in a placement year after doing a couple of years of an ordinary degree, something that seems to be increasingly lost as the pressures of the cost of living force glamorous nights out into more banal nights in. A big part of what is important about university is not solely the materialistic conception of it as a factory for better-paying jobs, but as a place where knowledge is expanded. While messing around with friends may not fit the traditional scholastic view of what learning is, isn’t it important that young people get to meet new peers, learn to live away from home, and get to properly enter adulthood?
This is especially important in Northern Ireland, with education largely segregated between the two main communities by de facto, and with a large percentage of young people only really having experience of ‘the other side’ when they move to Belfast and either get a job or get into UU or QUB. This isolation of people and the discouragement of education, curiosity, and learning about the world, and to instead purely operate as agents of raw economic growth is completely cynical, considering that quite a lot of the political class pushing for young people not to go to university are Oxbridge alumni in degrees that aren’t exactly that employable unless you happen to be a member of the Conservative Monday Club.
While it’s certainly a good thing that the powers-that-be are trying to get under-25s more experience in the workplace, and I’m certainly grateful for my own opportunity to gain great professional experience, there is still something to lament in how the university experience is becoming less and less accessible. The opportunity to delay the beginning of your working life for a few years in the hopes of some sort of self-discovery seems to be becoming an increasingly exclusive club indeed.
References:
[1] Office for National Statistics. ‘Young People Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET), UK’. Ons.Gov.Uk, Office for National Statistics, 26 August 2026. https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peoplenotinwork/unemployment/bulletins/youngpeoplenotineducationemploymentortrainingneet/august2026
[2] Universities UK. ‘Work-Based Learning for Every Undergraduate in New Commitment From Universities’. Universities UK, 10 September 2026. https://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/latest/news/work-based-learning-every-undergraduate
