Why are brands ignoring the apprentice ‘value exchange’?
Does your business have a marketing apprentice? If not, you’re in the majority.
Some 76.7% of the 2,350 respondents to Marketing Week’s 2026 Career & Salary Survey work for a company that doesn’t run a marketing apprenticeship scheme. This figure rises to 82.3% for B2B businesses and 88.3% of SMEs (250 employees and under).
When asked why not, almost half (46.7%) of the total sample say they don’t know, while more than a fifth (22.1%) claim such schemes require too much time and resource to maintain.
Concerningly, 15.6% work for a firm that doesn’t see the value in apprenticeships, while 8.5% can’t get buy-in at the highest level and 4.8% claim such a programme is too complicated to develop.
“There’s an unbelievable value exchange there that both company and apprentice [benefit from],” says former apprentice Molly MacArthur. “They are missing a trick.”
In the space of 12 years, MacArthur has gone from 18-year-old marketing apprentice to owning digital media strategy, planning and optimisation across social, programmatic, search and audio as performance manager at Reckitt. She insists brands get a clear return from investing time into an apprentice.
We have to do something different. But [apprenticeships are] now justifiably on the too difficult pile because of the confusion.
Maggie Jones, CIM
“The hardest part is getting started, getting familiar with the process, understanding what does that mean for them going off to college one day a week or having a study day? What does that look like for them? As soon as [brands] start to look into it, they’ll see it’s a seamless and easy process,” MacArthur explains.
Of course, apprenticeships still go under the radar in many businesses, let alone schools. Becoming an apprentice wasn’t spoken about at her school, the expectation being most people would go to university after sixth form.
“Everyone was applying to university at sixth form and I really wasn’t enjoying it. I wasn’t enjoying sitting in a classroom. But the biggest deciding factor for me was when I was looking at all the different courses, I wasn’t 100% sure yet what I wanted to do,” MacArthur recalls.
“I knew that I liked business, but I’d never actually been in a business.”
Research online led her to a government website advertising apprenticeship roles. Aged 18, MacArthur took a position at display furniture business Rockingham Display Shop while studying for a QA Digital Marketing Apprenticeship. Not only was she their first marketing apprentice, MacArthur was one of just three employees.
“I got to get stuck in with absolutely everything, every element of the business. They were just grateful for the hands-on help and I was grateful to be learning really fast,” she explains.
“It was such a fantastic experience to be in real world scenarios with real world people, with real consequences to what you’re doing, as opposed to working in theory in sixth form.”
‘Protecting the industry’: Brands urged to recognise apprenticeship value exchange
Her role involved leading the social media strategy, making website edits and creating images and videos for social and online. One week out of every six she would go for four days to study at a local college. MacArthur describes this as a “seamless” integration of the day job and learning with her peers.
“It was all planned into timelines and how we allocated work. It was never really an issue. I never felt like I was trying to study, but had this big workload or vice versa,” she explains.
“They were very understanding that I really needed to get this qualification and pass, because it was a reflection on them as well.”
The second year of the apprenticeship saw MacArthur join B2B lighting firm Zumtobel Group as an e-marketing coordinator, where she led on social media, internal comms and acted as project manager on the development of a new app. Still the only apprentice, after the programme finished the business created a role to keep MacArthur on.
“Twelve years ago companies were still dabbling in the paid social and organic side. So, they pretty much just handed it off to me to own. That was an incredible experience, putting something out into the world, looking at the data that was coming back in. Is it working? Isn’t it? What sort of impact does that have on the business?” she recalls.
“That was an unbelievable experience. It’s one of those things that’s so hard to replicate in a classroom.”
Rethink needed
While some business have embraced the possibilities of apprenticeships, Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) director of qualifications and partnerships, Maggie Jones, says the data makes “damning reading” around the lack of engagement and perception schemes are too difficult to run.
“You look at the SMEs and B2B combination and you think, the UK economy is built on SMEs and a lot of them are B2B. And arguably, if you’re an apprentice in the right SME you’ll get such a wide experience,” she notes.
Compounding the perception problem is confusion around the government’s vision, says Jones, who explains it’s “difficult to understand how everything fits together” in the apprenticeship environment.
With a view to “turbocharging growth” this National Apprenticeships Week (9-15 February), the government is promising a new online platform bringing information on apprenticeships together in one place.
In December, the government announced a £725m investment in apprenticeships, following the launch in June 2025 of Skills England. Part of wider reforms to the Growth and Skills Levy, the aim is to create 50,000 more apprenticeships for young people.
Alongside pledging to cover the full cost of apprenticeships for under-25s working within SMEs, from April the government also plans to roll out new short courses in subjects like AI and digital skills.
[Apprenticeships are] perceived as less than doing a degree or that you’ll miss out on this university experience, but there are so many parallels.
Molly MacArthur, Reckitt
Making it easier for businesses and aspiring marketers to close the skills gap is something the CIM supports. Jones cites research from recruiter Hays’ 2026 UK Salary & Recruiting Trends guide, which found 93% of marketing employers are suffering skills shortages.
“We have to do something different. But [apprenticeships are] now justifiably on the too difficult pile because of the confusion,” she says.
“Not just confusion about the process, but from an employer’s perspective, what’s happening around funding? What’s available? Even if you really did know inside out what you were doing, do employers actually feel able to be part of the assessment process on behaviours?”
The assessment point is a source of concern. Jones asks where the consistency is between an SME assessing an apprentice in a tiny team, versus a large corporate with a robust people function.
“If people take GCSEs, A Levels, BTECs, if they take a degree, there is a level of consistency about the process and the assessment outcome,” she notes. “That level of consistency I am really concerned about.”
Despite the confusion, the CIM is determined to celebrate apprenticeships. In November, the industry body will recognise the achievement of its Level 6 and Level 7 apprentices at its graduation ceremony.
As well as working with training providers in Wales to embed its qualification into the Level 4 Digital Marketing Apprenticeship, anyone on a marketing apprenticeship can join The Marketing Club, the CIM’s global community for student marketers.
Jones explains she’s always advocated for a variety of routes into marketing, because a diverse profession requires a diverse set of skills.
“Whatever route you take, it should be possible for you to arrive at the same point,” she states.
When it comes to brands embracing apprenticeships, Jones urges them to consider the return on investment.
“We invest this much in this person and they will then bring these skills to the business, and that will result in us being stronger in these areas. That is true of any recruit, but for some reason apprenticeships are sort of like ‘Oh, hang on’ because we don’t know enough about it,” she observes.
Getting a head start
While there may be confusion around how the government’s agenda will play out, for those who have studied an apprenticeship the benefits are clear.
By 25, MacArthur already had seven years’ experience managing a team of digital specialists, which she feels gave her an “enormous head start” on peers negotiating their first job out of university.
“They’d committed to these degrees and these careers they were hoping for, and that wasn’t necessarily how it panned out for them,” she explains. “That was for some of them quite a hard adjustment to match the real world careers with what they’d studied for.”
MacArthur reflects on how valuable those early experiences were in terms of gaining responsibility and encountering real world problems. Having a solid foundation in marketing after the two-year apprenticeship ended gave her a “huge amount of confidence”, particularly going into interviews.
“When people are hiring for those junior roles, they’re not necessarily expecting you to have a huge amount of experience at that time, but I was bringing years of experience with me already. It definitely gave me a helping hand,” she notes.
Ambassador for the East of England Apprenticeship Ambassador Network, Sophie Bolton is a former PR and Communications Apprentice and now communications consultant at workforce solutions firm Guidant Global.
By the end of my apprenticeship I had relevant experience and a qualification to add to my CV, which has positioned me to progress in my career.
Sophie Bolton, Guidant Global
Like MacArthur, she believes apprenticeships are a perfect blend of structured learning and hands-on experience, which helped her quickly gain industry knowledge and practical skills.
“By the end of my apprenticeship I had relevant experience and a qualification to add to my CV, which has positioned me to progress in my career – whether that be stepping into a more advanced role or continuing to build on the foundations my apprenticeship gave me,” she states.
That said, perception issues remain. People default to asking MacArthur where she went to university, which she regards as an opportunity to educate people about alternative routes into the industry.
“Some people are quite shocked. They’re like: ‘What, we’re at the same level and I’m paying all these university fees and you’re free?’ I’m like: ‘Yes,’” she explains.
However, the general misunderstanding around apprenticeships remains a “big issue” and thinking hasn’t shifted much in the past 12 years, MacArthur adds.
“A key thing is the perception. [Apprenticeships are] perceived as less than doing a degree or that you’ll miss out on this university experience, but there are so many parallels within the apprenticeship world,” she notes.
‘Life changing on both sides’: Three marketers on the value of apprenticeshipsYouth columnist for CIM’s Catalyst Magazine, Evie Bowers, decided to take the degree route and is currently studying business management with marketing at the University of Birmingham.
At sixth form she was under the impression trade-focused apprenticeships were the only options available.
“When I was at sixth form, I don’t remember there being much support from my school to explore apprenticeships, certainly not enough to make me seriously consider one,” she recalls.
“Knowing what I know now, particularly the tight budgets and endless internship applications of university, I do think I would have benefited from exploring apprenticeships more seriously, so I could fairly consider my options.”
While ultimately she’s confident university was the right choice for her, Bowers sees how an apprenticeship can help aspiring marketers build their skillset and unlock opportunities.
“Compared to university, the prospect of earning while you learn and gaining hands-on experience is enviable,” she adds.
As MacArthur points out, becoming an apprentice doesn’t prevent someone from studying for a degree later in their career or taking professional qualifications. The way you approach learning as an apprentice never leaves you, she explains.
“Partly it’s my awareness of other people’s perceptions that an apprenticeship might be less that I feel even more pressure to be on board with the latest trend, what’s happening in each platform, especially working in the digital media side,” says MacArthur.
“It is changing all the time. That mind frame really does help me stay at the cutting edge.”
She advises anyone curious about a marketing apprenticeship to reach out to providers and former apprentices on LinkedIn, as well as approach companies in their area to see if they want to support alternative routes into the industry. The key point for any aspiring marketer is that taking an apprenticeship is just the start of the learning process.
“At the time it can really feel like, it’s this or nothing,” says MacArthur. “Just keep an open mind about what your career progression and career journey could look like.”
Marketing Week will continue our reporting from the 2026 Career & Salary Survey in the coming weeks.