K10 Apprenticeships

Providing an unsecured £200k social investment loan to K10 Apprenticeships

Apprenticeships are a key component to the government’s strategy to improve the level of social mobility of young people in the UK. They have increased in prominence over recent years as a result of the growing cost of formal education and the growing need for a more skilled labour force in order to boost economic activity. 

CAF Venturesome made a social investment to K10 Apprenticeships Ltd. in 2016, in the form of a £200k unsecured loan alongside two other funders – Trust for London and Treebeard Trust. The combined social investment fully refinanced a previous finance facility which was charging a high interest rate. The reduction in interest costs enabled K10 to allocate more funding to provide further support to apprentices through an increase in the wages it paid them and helped K10 improve its overall sustainability and creditworthiness as it grew its service.

Five years later the loan is due to be fully repaid in March 2022.

They seek to deliver truly positive change in communities throughout London and the South East by focussing on the following:

• Through their work with developers, contractors, infrastructure and utilities companies they are able to create apprentice opportunities that would not otherwise have existed.
  
  
• They are not simply getting people into employment but have a clear agenda to enable their apprentices to obtain a qualification they can use for the rest of their career.
  
  
• By running an effective training and apprentice programme they are seeking to develop the apprentice’s self-belief, enable a greater sense of optimism about their future which all contribute to a greater overall sense of well-being.
  
  
• They seek to make the construction industry more accessible to people who traditionally would not have worked there. They are pleased with their success to date in helping women, ex-offenders and ethnic minorities develop a rewarding career in construction.
  
  
• They work with a large network of job centres, charities and other employment agencies to find candidates for the apprenticeships. They seek to help their partners improve their success rates in placing people into sustainable employment by giving them a deeper understanding of the construction industry as well as access to live jobs information.

We are proud to share their outcomes:

• 63% of apprentices are from BAME backgrounds
• 5% have a disability
• 11% of apprentices are female
• 88% were previously unemployed
• 90% are Londoners, and
• 98% of young people completing their apprenticeship have gone on to full time employment.
        

Here are some wonderful impact stories of the winners of the K10 Annual Apprenticeship Awards 2021.