Indies including Full Fat TV and Optomen are welcoming ten apprentices from this week as the BBC’s Apprentice Hub kicks off its inaugural scheme in Birmingham.
The apprentices are taking on year-long placements in broadcast production, content creation and digital marketing with businesses across the city and the cohort will also work in the Apprentice Hub in the BBC’s Mailbox hub.
Other companies partnering with the BBC for this first round include Electric House, WMCA, Caters News, No Class Creations and Top Banana.
Google is funding the training and the BBC aims to place 50 apprentices within the first year of the hub. The corporation will pay 20% of the salary for each candidate placed in a business with fewer than 250 employees.
BBC Academy head of early careers and staff apprenticeships Sarah Moors said partners were already on board for the second cohort of apprenticeships in September.
Optomen TV has taken on 24 year-old Chantelle Grant, who starts as a broadcast production assistant, initially working on BBC2’s The Great British Menu for six months.
“It is a great opportunity to learn on the job,” she said. “I’m looking forward to learning about videography and sound design, and discovering what it’s like to put a set together. I can’t wait to get stuck in.”
The remaining nine apprentices are: Shaun Hennell, Esme Harcourt, Alicia Fowles, Fyzan Azzam, Lewis Abrahams, Jemma Nash, Louis Griffin, Anjalee Kakar and Ben Fortnam.
In its Across the UK plan, the BBC has set a target of recruiting 1,000 apprentices a year by 2025, 800 of whom will be placed outside London.
