Wednesday 16-04-2025 - 12:00

We all know the challenge: finding and retaining experienced student advisors is tougher than ever. Budget pressures make training a luxury many SUs can't afford, putting the quality of student advice – and the student experience – at serious risk. This is a compromise we’re not willing to make.

Last year, our members at Strategy Exchange sparked an idea: an advice apprenticeship to create a sustainable flow of skilled talent into our SUs. Now, we're partnering with Advice UK, and a select few SUs, to make this vision a reality.

To help our member SUs create capacity, we’re going to develop a new apprenticeship standard to attract fresh talent into our movement. But we can’t pull off this massive project alone, we need SUs to get involved. Our Trailblazers group will be absolutely vital to our success. There’s lots of different ways to be involved in this group. Could your SU hire an apprentice, offer project support or provide ongoing feedback?

If you want your SU to benefit from this new initiative, sign up to one of our upcoming briefings and help us take action. 

After these initial meetings, we’ll be gathering expressions of interest from SUs ready to get involved. You can submit your form today. Expressions of interest will close on 8 May.

The first project meeting will happen on 3 June, where we will start on this exciting pathway to strengthen SU advice services nationwide.