Almost Half of Aviva Apprentices Aged 30 Plus

LONDON, England, Feb. 4 -- Aviva, a provider of insurance, savings and investment products, issued the following news release:

Apprenticeships are not just for school leavers and young people. Aviva has 450 levy-funded apprentices across its UK business aged 18-68, of which 43% are over 30 years old. Two-thirds of all its apprentices are existing employees who are looking to develop their skills.

The theme for this year's National Apprenticeship Week is 'Look Beyond' and is celebrating the diversity that apprenticeships bring to employers, apprentices and communities.

The apprenticeship roles at Aviva reflect a broad range of skills. The focus is on developing core insurance skills such as underwriting and actuarial, but also a need to develop new skills such as digital, analytics and cyber.

Sophie Gray, Head of Apprenticeships at Aviva, said: "Originally we thought apprenticeships would primarily attract new talent to entry-level roles, but the diversity of schemes means we can be more inclusive for people from different backgrounds and career stages - be it school leavers, people returning to work, or people reinventing their careers.

"We've found that this makes for more engaged and dedicated employees, with the skills they develop being extremely valuable to us."

We also have people who come to us with fresh ideas, motivation and a propensity to learn over time. We're embracing new skills such as Data Science to equip us for the future and apprenticeships are helping us grow our own experts."