By Lindsay Conroy, Chief Executive Officer at Association of Apprentices
When we talk about career progression, we often focus on the visible factors: qualifications, skills, experience, ambition. But there’s another, quieter force that shapes success just as profoundly: Networks.
Networks are the connective tissue of professional life. They provide access to opportunity, guidance, and support, the unspoken ‘infrastructure’ behind many career stories. We see this in countless ways: alumni connections that open doors, professional associations that nurture confidence, and mentors who help people navigate change. But while these structures are well-established in some parts of the workforce, access to them is uneven, particularly for those entering employment outside large organisations or traditional graduate pathways.
Small to medium sized organisations employ c40% of all apprentices and in these smaller organisations, opportunities for peer cohorts, alumni networks, or structured mentoring are far less likely to exist. For apprentices, the 700,000 people currently on programme, who are combining real work with real learning, networks can be the missing link between potential and progression.
If we want to create a truly inclusive and high-performing system, we need to give apprentices the same opportunity to connect, belong, and thrive.
Networks: The Hidden Ingredient of Employability
In Employability, we often talk about skills gaps and qualifications. But the ‘network gap’ can be just as significant.
Networks matter because Employability is not simply about getting a job, but about sustaining and progressing within one. Access to peers, mentors, and professional communities helps individuals navigate the informal aspects of working life: understanding expectations, interpreting feedback, building confidence, and learning how to advocate for themselves.
For many people, these insights are acquired implicitly through social or educational networks. For others, particularly those entering work through apprenticeships, they are far less visible. Without access to people who can sense-check decisions, share lived experience, or model progression routes, individuals are more likely to feel uncertain, isolated, or stuck. Over time, this can affect performance, confidence, and ultimately retention.
Sociologists call it social capital: the value we gain from relationships, shared experiences, and community. Research, such as the CIPD Learning at Work (2023) Survey, highlights the importance, and resurgence, of networks. A widely reported estimate suggests that around three quarters of jobs are filled through personal or professional connections and LinkedIn’s Opportunity Index found that more than 70% of professionals are hired at companies where they already have a connection.
For graduates, much of that capital comes built in, through university networks, alumni groups, and professional societies. For employees in large organisations, it often develops organically through internal mentoring or cross-team collaboration.
But for apprentices, particularly those in small or mid-sized businesses, those networks can be incredibly limited. They may be the only apprentice in their organisation, juggling full-time work with study, without the social structures or professional communities that others take for granted.
That lack of connection doesn’t reflect a lack of drive or capability; it’s a design gap in the system.
I know that feeling well.
I began my own career as an apprentice and often felt like an outsider in professional spaces. I didn’t have the same shorthand or shared experiences as my university-educated colleagues, and it took time to build confidence and find my footing. That shorthand covered everything from how to navigate meetings and professional language, to an implicit understanding of workplace expectations and career pathways. Without access to peers who shared similar starting points, I often felt I was learning these rules by trial and error rather than through guidance or support.
Years later, my network is one of my greatest assets. It’s helped me navigate career change, step into senior leadership, and open doors that once felt closed. But that took years, and quite a bit of luck, to build.
For many apprentices, that journey could be much easier if networks were designed in, rather than left to chance.
Why Networks Matter for Apprenticeships
A strong network gives apprentices more than professional advantage; it gives them belonging.
When apprentices connect with others at similar stages, they gain:
- Peer support that sustains motivation and resilience.
- Role models who show what success looks like in their field.
- Mentors who help them translate learning into career decisions.
- Opportunities to collaborate, learn, and grow beyond their immediate environment.
These aren’t soft outcomes, they translate directly into performance, retention, and long-term Employability. These are real concerns for employers looking to realise the return on their investment. National completion rates have improved – rising to 60.5% in 2023–24, up from 54.3% the previous year, as recorded by the Department for Education, but still fall short of the Government’s 67% target. Understanding the apprentice experience, and addressing the relational factors that influence whether individuals complete their apprenticeship or choose to leave before they achieve, is central to improving those outcomes.
Networks play a critical role in this because they act as stabilisers during the most vulnerable stages of an apprentice’s journey. They provide safe spaces to ask questions that may feel difficult to raise with line managers, to share challenges before they escalate, and to learn from others who are navigating similar pressures. This kind of relational support can prevent small issues from becoming reasons to leave.
From an employer perspective, this matters because early exits are rarely driven by technical competence alone. More often, they stem from uncertainty, lack of confidence, or a weak sense of belonging. Networks help address these factors by reinforcing professional identity, building resilience, and making progression pathways feel visible and achievable. In doing so, they support not just completion, but longer-term workforce stability and internal progression.
Evidence from the Association of Apprentices’ latest Impact Report (2024) reinforces this: the majority of members said the AoA network helps them feel more connected, part of something bigger, and less isolated. Four in five respondents reported increased confidence in their voice being heard, and 91% said they would return to another AoA event, clear signs that structured networks make a tangible difference to belonging and engagement.
Research from the St Martin’s Group reinforces this point. Its Apprenticeship Outcomes and Destinations report (2022), based on a large sample of non-completers, found that 31% of apprentices who left their programme said better support from their training provider – and 27% said support from their employer, including access to mentors and peer networks – would have encouraged them to stay. Structured, relational support isn’t a ‘nice to have’; it is a critical driver of completion and success.
That’s why networks aren’t just beneficial, they’re essential infrastructure for a thriving apprenticeship system.
Building the Network: The Role of the Association of Apprentices
The Association of Apprentices (AoA) was created to fill that gap, to give apprentices a community that connects them across employers, sectors, and geographies.
AoA provides a free, inclusive platform where apprentices can learn from each other, access personal and professional development, and find a sense of belonging that extends beyond their workplace. Through online and in-person events, mentoring programmes, wellbeing support, short courses, and employer-led partnerships, it helps apprentices build the social capital that underpins success.
Crucially, it’s not about replicating traditional ‘old boys’ networks, it’s about creating something better: modern, diverse, and equitable.
Today the Association supports more than 50,000 members, a third of whom come from small to medium-sized employers. Its community is also notably diverse: around 30% identify as being from an ethnic minority background, 17% report having a disability or learning condition, and half live in the most disadvantaged areas of the country. These are groups who, nationally, remain at greater risk of leaving their apprenticeship early – making access to connection, support, and belonging even more critical.
Apprentices who join often describe it as the missing piece of their experience. They find confidence, connection, and a shared identity as part of a national community of peers. Employers, too, benefit: engaged apprentices stay longer, perform better, and represent their organisations more confidently.
But the Association’s reach depends on collaboration. It’s free to apprentices because it’s supported by partners who share its mission. For the system to truly embed network access as part of the apprenticeship experience, we need more employers, providers, and policymakers to see the value in supporting it.
A Collective Effort: Embedding Networks into Employability Practice
The Employability profession has always recognised that success isn’t only about skills, it’s about relationships and opportunity. Building networks for apprentices is an extension of that principle.
So how do we make it happen?
- Employers can embed time for community participation into working hours, promote membership of professional networks, and encourage apprentices to build relationships beyond their workplace.
- Training providers can integrate peer learning and mentoring as standard practice, not an add-on.
- Policymakers and sector bodies can recognise social capital as a legitimate outcome of high-quality apprenticeship delivery, one that drives equity and mobility.
In practice, this means treating connection as part of the Employability offer, not an optional extra. It might include giving apprentices protected time to engage in peer networks, embedding mentoring into programme design, or using insights from apprentice communities to inform onboarding and line management practice.
Over time, these approaches enable organisations to move from reactive retention strategies to proactive workforce development, grounded in a deeper understanding of the lived apprentice experience.
By investing in connection, we’re not just helping individuals; we’re strengthening the system itself. Networks foster engagement, improve outcomes, and create the sense of belonging that sustains lifelong Employability.
Connected Futures
The future of work is increasingly about connection, across disciplines, sectors, and experiences. Apprenticeships are already reshaping how people learn and earn; we need to reshape how they connect.
By valuing networks as a fundamental part of the apprenticeship journey, we can build a system where everyone, regardless of background or employer size, has access to the same relational advantage.
Because when people feel they belong, they stay, they grow, and they thrive.
And that’s not just good for apprentices – it’s good for everyone.