ALMOST 200 fully funded apprenticeships are being offered to school leavers and those already in jobs by a university in Glasgow.

Glasgow Caledonian University has secured £5.4million to become one of Scotland’s largest providers of Graduate Apprenticeships.

The funding award, from Skills Development Scotland (SDS), will allow GCU to offer 194 fully-funded places in civil engineering, construction, cyber security, software development, engineering and design, and business management, from September 2019.

The university held talks with more than 90 employers across Scotland to gauge demand for the expansion of the programme in partnership with companies such as IBM, Lloyds Banking Group, Jacobs, SEEMis, GRAHAM, and McLaughlin & Harvey.

There are already 240 graduate apprentices enrolled at GCU studying a range of undergraduate and postgraduate courses.

The apprenticeships allow people to combine work with higher education, from school leavers in their first job to experienced professionals looking to gain formal education, further develop their career or retrain.

Lewis Clark, a graduate apprentice Mechanical Engineer, who works for healthcare giant GSK, in Irvine, and studies at GCU, said: "Combining studying with full-time work has definitely given me an advantage as I use the theory I learn at university in a practical sense on site.

"I feel that the graduate apprenticeship will allow me to progress further in my career quicker."

Professor Pamela Gillies CBE, Principal and Vice-Chancellor of GCU, said: “We are truly proud of our pioneering approach to co-created, work-based education, nationally and internationally.”

For more information visit www.apprenticeships.scot/graduate or follow @apprentice_scot.