UKSA has announced a new partnership with The Marine Society and Sea Cadets  which will expand its apprenticeship offering for young people across England.

The Isle of Wight based charity, which provides life-enhancing water-based adventures, education and world-leading maritime training, together with MSSC, will deliver apprenticeship schemes and provide young people with employment, while undertaking quality training in specialist sectors within the marine industry – specifically ports, harbours and near coastal routes.

UKSA is already working in tandem with several companies including SeaCat Services, Veolia and Williams Shipping and its collaboration with MSSC should enable many more apprenticeships next year helping to plug the UK skills gap estimated to reach 4m in the next two years.

The Marine Society and Sea Cadets joins existing UKSA partner Isle of Wight College, to ensure many more places for job and training opportunities are on offer and will recruit apprentices from across England.

Ben Willows, CEO of UKSA said: “Industry partnerships like this are incredibly important for creating more pathways in maritime. The more opportunities on offer, the more young people we can get into the workplace to start long-term maritime careers fulfilling vital roles in the maritime industry. We are always looking for local and regional businesses to partner with us for the apprenticeship programme to provide vital work placements so it would be great to hear from anyone who is interested.”

Darrell Bate, Director of Maritime Training and Development at The Marine Society and Sea Cadets said:  “We are thrilled to partner with a renowned maritime organisation who share our passion for high standards of training and will enable us to expand the number of apprentices training in the maritime sector. We look forward to developing our offer with UKSA in response to the growing employer demand for relevant skills.”

Apprentices can undertake the Level 2 Port Operative Apprenticeship or the Level 3 Workboat Crew Member Apprenticeship. The Port Operative Apprenticeship prepares you with everything you need to safely and competently carry out port operative duties. Port operatives play vital roles in allowing businesses and organisations to deliver goods and cargo safely and on time. They are responsible for loading, unloading, handling and storing cargo from container and transport vessels at a port.

The Workboat Crew Member Apprenticeship is a two-year programme designed to give young people all the skills, knowledge and behaviours to work on a wide variety of specialist vessels. These range from tugs and multi-purpose workboats, to fast pilot boats and crew transfer vessels taking personnel out to vessels or installations offshore. Workboats operate in varying marine environments such as construction of offshore wind farms, providing a range of services within a port or inland waterways, including surveys and towage. They may also act as support vessels in major salvage operations and wreck removal.