An IT Apprenticeship business Pop-Up Party at Reading Universal Technical College (UTC) celebrated A-level, BTEC results and the business’ 10,000th apprentice, which was attended by Rob Wilson, Reading’s Conservative MP.

The IT apprenticeship business, QA Apprenticeships, have completed their 10kinTech initiative, which aimed to place 10,000 young people into Tech and Digital careers.

Mr Wilson celebrated this achievement by congratulating their 10,000th apprentice and UTC student, Erik Haxhilari, who will be starting an apprenticeship at Cisco.

Mr Wilson met QA Apprenticeship’s director Ben Pike to discuss the 10kinTech campaign and the merits of apprenticeships, before highlighting the importance of such programmes in equipping young people with vital workplace skills.

He further emphasised how apprenticeships fulfil the ‘huge demand for highly skilled and well-trained individuals in the ever-growing tech sector.’ Half of students from UTC will be moving onto university, with the other 50 per cent continuing into apprenticeships.

Mr Wilson praised the college, stating that it ‘exemplifies perfectly the drive towards delivering a more technically-based economy’, before congratulating both students and staff on their A-level and BTEC results – which improved upon their 2015 results with a 99.5 per cent pass rate.