by Eric Dunker and Mike Roberts
No industry has been more bullish on skills-based hiring than tech—and for good reason. AI and tech are developing so rapidly that college courses can’t keep pace with the skills needed on the job. At the same time, millions of U.S. tech jobs expected to be unfilled by 2026 will require the durable skills like writing, management, and problem-solving traditionally baked into a college degree. The truth is, in today’s tech economy, workers need both—on-the-job skills and the benefits of a degree—to succeed.
The Apprenticeship Degree: Bridging the Gap Between Education and Industry
Health care and education have embraced a solution that can make a whole lot of sense for tech: the apprenticeship degree. A concept advanced in the U.S. by Reach University, the degree combines broad-based academic knowledge with practical, paid, skills-based training. It’s a shared relationship between the employer and the university.
Employers Want On-the-Job Technical Skills Plus A Degree
Workers entering tech are often both under-credentialed and underskilled; this has contributed to a historic shortage of job-ready talent in the sector. While many tech companies have touted skills-based hiring, 73% of all tech positions in 2022 required a bachelor’s degree. At the same time, specialized tech skills remain essential, and less than one-third of college students graduate with meaningful work-based learning needed to succeed in a first job. The apprenticeship degree tackles both problems at once.
With the apprenticeship degree, tech employers can train learners to navigate rapid AI-era changes, while colleges and universities simultaneously instill the durable skills of the liberal arts degree. Half of the learning of an apprenticeship degree is job-embedded; the other half is seminar-based outside the typical workday. An apprenticeship degree allows students to earn a credential without having to choose between earning income and completing coursework.
Retention and Cost-Savings for Employers
What’s more, the apprenticeship degree yields graduates significantly more likely to be loyal to their employer—studies show 34% higher retention rates for working learners. By partnering with higher ed to offer apprenticeship degrees, tech companies can save the high costs associated with replacing workers—often one-half to two times the employee’s annual salary. They can tap their own entry-level talent pools to upskill workers instead of engaging in bidding wars over a limited number of computer science graduates. Employers save money by hiring their own apprentices and land uniquely qualified employees who already know the company.
Stability and Career Advancement for Employees
The apprenticeship degree also allows companies to support employees from marginalized populations in obtaining a degree, directly tackling tech’s diversity issue. Black and Hispanic employees together account for only 14% of the tech workforce, women hold just 26% of computing jobs, and women of color represent only 5% of the computing workforce. These numbers can start to change when women and people of color in tech no longer have to choose between a job and a degree.
Of course, a degree isn’t necessary for a tech career in the way it is for licensure in teaching or healthcare. Why would a candidate or employer in the tech sector want to invest in a degree pathway?
In today’s economy, there’s a ceiling on upward mobility and permeability for a worker without a degree. Any employee asked to manage people and budgets is going to need the lateral and critical thinking skills learned through higher education. Moreover, a four-year degree remains a prerequisite for many managerial positions in tech. And during layoffs, individuals without degrees are often the first to be let go.
Fortune 500 Companies Adopting Apprenticeship Degrees
The apprenticeship degree is a no-brainer for the tech sector—and major players in the industry are taking notice.
Accenture has committed to aim for 20% of their entry-level hiring to be done through apprenticeships.
Lockheed Martin has launched a 3-year software development/cybersecurity apprenticeship through which students can finish their degree while in a full-time paid apprenticeship. According to talent-acquisition manager Kim Pham, Lockheed can even kickstart the clearance process for their classified programs by the time workers graduate with their associate’s degree.
And Siemens Healthineers’ Director of North American Workforce Strategy, following a visit to a UK plant that employs several apprenticeship-degree working learners, is optimistic about the promise of apprenticeship degrees, calling the credential “a significant solution to our nation’s workforce crisis in the intersection of health and tech.”
A Better Alternative to Boot Camps
Some might wonder if the apprenticeship degree is just the next shiny thing in hiring. After all, short-term skills-based boot camps were pitched as an alternative pathway for tech and never met expectations at scale. Why would the apprenticeship degree fare any better?
Put simply, there are real reasons that employers value degrees. Technical skills haven’t been the problem–every boot camp graduate has those. What they don’t have is the degree, and the durable skills and broad, liberal arts knowledge that come with it.
Furthermore, most tech boot camps cost $10,000-$20,000, often put debt on the students, and don’t offer stackable or transferable certificates towards the bachelor’s degrees required for upward mobility. The option of an apprenticeship degree would lift the ceiling hit by so many.
Maybe the apprenticeship degree is just “the next new thing” in the tech sector. The model allows for a future where workers can learn on the job and in the classroom at the same time. It opens up opportunities for family-sustaining, long-term career pathways for employees. And it creates a new generation of highly-skilled, versatile workers for employers who are prepared to adapt as the industry shifts. We’re bullish on the apprenticeship degree, and the tech sector should be too.
Eric Dunker, PhD, is the Chief Growth Officer and Founding Executive Director of the National Center for the Apprenticeship Degree at Reach University.
Mike Roberts is the CEO and Founder of Creating Coding Careers.