26 apprenticeships to be created in Shropshire and West Midlands by BT

The 26 new apprentice roles will be recruited in locations such as Oswestry, Shrewsbury, Birmingham, Coventry, Stoke-on-Trent, Walsall and Worcester.

It comes as BT has today announced a nationwide apprenticeship drive in an effort to equip young people with the skills and training needed to meet the challenges of the changing jobs market.

This year’s BT apprentice and graduate recruitment, which includes mobile operator EE, will see the new employees work in a variety of roles, ranging from customer service, vehicle maintenance and finance to cyber security and software development.

BT say their latest recruitment of 1,700 apprentices and graduates across the UK builds on the employment of nearly 2,500 in the past two years.

Apprenticeships and Skills Minister, Robert Halfon, has welcomed the announcement. He said: “It is always good to talk about apprenticeships and the ladder of opportunity they give people to secure the career they want.

"By committing to injecting 1,700 new graduate and apprentice jobs into the UK, BT is offering a real chance to be trained by some of the best in their field. This is especially great news ahead of what will be the 10th annual National Apprenticeship Week where we will showcase the life-changing potential of apprenticeships for people up and down the country."

Colin Bannon, chairman of BT’s West Midlands regional board, said: “This latest major recruitment is a further example of BT’s commitment to the West Midlands as one of the region’s leading employers and investors.

"We are offering exciting, high quality careers in a fast moving industry in order to ensure the households and businesses of this region are able to benefit from the latest, first class communications. The new recruits will be joining a world-leading company, which has already invested hundreds of millions of pounds in the West Midlands in technologies such as superfast broadband and 4G."

BT is one of the UK’s largest employers with 81,000 UK-based people.