Makers in the Sun

Breaking down barriers to accessing the nation’s talent

We’re excited to be launching the UK’s most agile, inclusive, industry-led and accelerated Apprenticeships program — available throughout the nation.

You might have seen a story about this in the careers section of the Sun (the UK’s most-read newspaper from Monday to Saturday, with 9.86 million readers and 29.03 million online readers).

When we were approached about the opportunity to appear in the Sun, there were mixed reactions within the Makers community which is why we wanted to take a moment to explain our decision here.

The first thing to point out is that we did not pay for this piece. In fact, we’re a signatory of Stop Funding Hate — a growing list of companies that don’t advertise in the Sun, Daily Mail or Daily Express.

The second thing to point out is that despite some internal debates about whether or not to go ahead with this, we ultimately decided that reaching new audiences and practicing inclusivity ourselves won out.

Inclusivity means that we make an effort to speak to new audiences.

Inclusivity means that we suspend prejudice.

Inclusivity means that we endeavour to create Makers cohorts with all kinds of backgrounds represented.

We have previously spoken out about apprenticeships in ComputerWeekly, and have also had stories in Forbes, the Evening Standard and the Telegraph (among similar publications) but we need our reach to grow further.

We want to attract as many people as possible to Makers and include as many different segments of society as we can: we’re very aware that different people read different publications.

It is only by suspending prejudice that we create diversity and build a strong and powerful workforce in the digital economy — full of different perspectives, different ideas, different life experiences.

You can’t be what you can’t see. Ultimately we want to spread the message to as many people as possible in the UK that there are alternative education options out there. And we believe we would be doing a disservice by not reaching out to the broadest possible audience.