Aspiring radio producers will be given the chance to develop skills alongside BBC Radio Production teams and learn ‘on the job’ with the return of this apprenticeship for radio trainees.
The application process opens on the 17 March via the BBC Careers site.
The two-year scheme, which first began in 2013, offers six placements and will focus on speech radio, concentrating on BBC Radio 4 and the BBC World Service. The scheme welcomes candidates without university degrees and aims to allow people from all backgrounds to gain careers in radio.
Uniquely the scheme has been developed alongside the National Council for the Training of Journalists and the apprentices will combine working within the BBC with study at Lambeth College. At the end of the two-year training, the apprentices will have all the skills and knowledge needed to gain an Advanced Apprenticeship in Journalism.
Joanne Butcher, Chief Executive of the NCTJ, says: “The NCTJ is pleased the inaugural BBC Radio Journalism Apprenticeship Scheme is to be repeated with the recruitment of a new intake of young enthusiastic apprentices. The BBC has designed a first-class on-the-job training programme, complemented by day-release training delivered by the award-winning journalism department at Lambeth College and assessed to the NCTJ’s exacting industry standards.”
Last year’s apprentices have already begun work on a variety of well-known BBC radio programmes including Saturday Live, The Film Programme, and Desert Island Discs.
Before joining their programme teams they recorded a series of audio features investigating the challenges involved in speech radio stations appealing to young people.
Apprentice Olivia Cope says: “It was a huge learning curve for all of us from the day we were set the challenge to make the features, to the day we presented them to our editors, family and friends. Having a piece of audio I made from scratch being on the BBC website is an amazing achievement and an even better feeling.”
