Shaping Portsmouth’s Apprenticeship Bus is back on the road for National Apprenticeship Week 2025.
Every year, the Apprenticeship Bus embarks on a three-day roadshow across the city of Portsmouth, bringing apprentices from local businesses and organisations directly to senior schools. This initiative enables Year 10-11 students an opportunity to engage with apprentices, face to face, providing them with an authentic, first-hand insight into the world of an apprenticeship.
This year’s tour will be taking place between Wednesday 12th February and Friday 14th February, with a bus provided by Stagecoach South and wrapped in it’s distinctive branding by MediaFleet.
Apprentices from more than 20 organisations will be on board, including Vespasian Security, Comserv Property Services, Specsavers, and South Western Railways, covering a wide range of possible careers.
In 2024, the Apprenticeship Bus engaged with over 1000 students. Feedback showed that 72% of students were now considering an apprenticeship when they hadn’t before.
Simon Ingram, Programme Co-Lead and Managing Director of Mountjoy, said “Apprenticeships are an undervalued educational and career pathway and having been through this route myself I was honoured when Shaping Portsmouth gave me an opportunity to be the volunteer lead for the Apprenticeship Bus Programme to raise its profile in the city of Portsmouth.
“Mountjoy strongly advocates Apprenticeships at all levels and encourage staff to develop and attain their potential through this route, they are accessible for anyone regardless of your family or personal financial situation, which is especially important in Portsmouth and Apprenticeships enable learning will you earn, developing interpersonal business skills that cannot be attained through any other route.”
Chloe Bolton, Programme Co-Lead and Enterprise Coordinator at Solent Careers Hub, said “This programme is such a valuable opportunity for our Portsmouth secondary schools, who engage with the roadshow every year. This offer for schools provides an important opportunity for Year 10 students to meet and speak with current apprentices and gain an increased understanding of apprenticeship routes. Both schools and students gain a huge amount of insight from the apprentice volunteers, who give real life experience and insight into local apprenticeships.”
Dave Humphries, Shaping Portsmouth’s CEO, adds “As with many of our programmes we are grateful to a number of organisations for helping deliver the apprenticeship bus tour. We’d particularly like to thank Mountjoy, Portsmouth City Council and Solent Careers Hub for helping organise this programme and to both Stagecoach and Mediafleet, without whom we’d not have the fantastic, branded apprenticeship bus. Finally, thank you to the many organisations that provide apprentices to join us on the bus tour. It is so important to showcase such a wide breadth of apprenticeships and for pupils to engage them first had to fully understand what an apprenticeship could offer them.”
The Apprenticeship Bus is delivered in partnership between Shaping Portsmouth, Portsmouth City Council, Mountjoy, and the Solent Careers Hub, with support from Stagecoach South and MediaFleet.
