At school, apprenticeships didn’t get much of a mention. Most students at Kathryn’s sixth form went to university – UCAS application sessions were built into the curriculum and left little room for much else. Not knowing what she wanted to do exactly, she chose to study her favourite subject, Philosophy, and applied to some universities too.
After accepting a conditional offer from the University of Birmingham, Kathryn felt that her heart just wasn’t in the decision about where her next steps were heading. This led to some soul-searching about what it was she enjoyed doing the most. Drawn to the blog she had been writing in her spare time and through further research, Kathryn came across Apprenticeships in Digital Marketing and the rest, she says, is history.
Completing a Level 3 and 4 Digital Marketing apprenticeship at a local IT company allowed her to learn and progress quickly, which saw her promoted to Marketing Manager overseeing a team of five. Without doubt, this was her stepping stone to the next role she was to take on.
This boost to her marketing career led to Kathryn working for an agency in Milton Keynes called Aira – one of the UK’s biggest SEO agencies. Again, her ability to learn quickly saw her gain promotion to Account Manager within the first year, which led her to work with large brands such as Tesco Plc and Klarna. Amid 2020's pandemic, and after a great deal of invaluable experience, Kathryn decided to take the plunge into self-employment. Within six weeks of setting up shop, her small business was fully booked.
There’s no doubt that an apprenticeship can be a springboard into a bright career and Kathryn firmly believes that whatever route you take, a positive attitude to learning will get you further than any qualification alone. Throughout her career, Kathryn has found that employers are much more interested in the examples she can give of what her skills and experience have been able to produce, rather than just her qualifications alone.