Why as a technology leader it's important to invest in early talent

To build successful engineering teams you need to be as passionate about people as you are about technology, and you need diversity.  When it comes to ‘doing what matters’, investing in school leavers and graduates strikes all the right cords for me. At Avanade I’ve invested in early talent for years and it's paying dividends, not just in our performance, but in our culture. As a non-graduate myself, nurturing early talent is something I am passionate about and want to promote so I’m delighted that we have a 50:50 female/male intake this year. We also have three times more female apprentices than male. That’s certainly something to celebrate!

Building engineering teams from the ground up, infused with early talent, in my case apprenticeships, has allowed me to ensure my teams have the right skills, at the right career levels to change and adapt to the challenges of the moment.

I want engineers that know infrastructure, can write code, and understand data.  It takes years to develop these skills, which is why a long term approach to investment in early talent is so important. At Avanade our attrition in the apprentice community is negligible – I’m talking single digit for over 60 apprentices trained in the last ten years here in the UK.  That has created an incredible pool of diverse, talented engineers and technologists, and such low attrition sure does make growing the talent pool easier and means the investment hasn’t been wasted.

I love seeing our current apprentices, and those who have completed the programme, working on major projects for our customers. For me this is one of the key attributes of successful early talent programmes, and why they are so important as part of workforce planning. Avanade apprentices and graduates get the opportunity to work on a range of different projects, no-one is hidden away and there’s no time for making the tea or doing admin tasks no-one else wants to do.

In the years during and following an apprenticeship I’ve had engineers working on projects for major banks, nuclear power stations and any number of lighthouse engagements.  This is the Avanade advantage, we win the big, exciting projects that provide the opportunities and exposure early talent needs, and then put them alongside the most skilled and experienced engineers we have.  There’s just no better way to learn!

What I would say to anyone considering an IT apprenticeship or a career in IT is to look for an organisation that’s going to give you broad exposure like we will at Avanade. The problem with working somewhere that specialises in a niche field, is that like all technology, it may be de-rigueur today, but it’ll get commoditised or eradicated tomorrow. Then where do you go? I’m not necessarily here to plug Microsoft (or Avanade, cough) but what better field is there right now? With opportunities in infrastructure, software engineering, data, AI - the list goes on. If you’re going to do Microsoft, it goes without saying you should be doing it at Avanade.

When you consider the excessive debts that going to university racks up these days, an apprenticeship is a very attractive and valid career path. Learning on the job and developing skills as you go hasn’t held me back and is a story repeated across Avanade and Accenture. You might be surprised how many senior people here started out as apprentices.

I’ve deliberately started on technical skills and gaining experience in this blog and of course that’s vital, but little use in my experience if you don’t develop the softer skills to communicate, present and persuade. That’s the topic for the next blog, and before I think about that I’m going to put the kettle on. Cup of tea?