Young Women in Apprenticeships

Apprenticeships are open to everyone. However, there are specific programmes aimed directly at women to support them to access Apprenticeships.

Inspiring stories of Women in Apprenticeships

National Apprenticeship Office helpline: 1800 794487

A Free service that provides apprenticeship advice open 12pm – 6pm Monday to Friday

Women in Apprenticeship (TUD 12 week access course)

Access to Apprenticeship Programme is delivered by TU Dublin’s college of Engineering and Built Environment. It is a 12 week programme that gives you an opportunity to sample a range of apprenticeships in Construction, Engineering, Electrical, Motor and Aviation – it runs 3 times a year – September, January and April.

A key objective of the Access to Apprenticeship programme is to increase the participation of women in craft apprenticeships. The Access to Apprenticeship Programme has developed a suit of activities to promote craft apprenticeships to young women:

Women in Apprenticeship Open Day

‘Women Building the Future’ Lunches

Try a Trade’ Day for young women: This event provides interested young woman (between the ages of 16 -24 years old) with an opportunity to ‘have a go’ at craft based apprenticeships. The ‘Try a Trade’ event is free. The activities are interactive, informative and offer interested participants access to some of the basic skills needed for craft apprenticeships. If you are interested in participating in our upcoming Try A Trade Day’s please complete this Expression of Interest form.

I-FIT (Ireland’s Female in Tech) Programme

I-FIT is a two-year programme aimed at enabling women to attain tech skills & qualifications to commence a successful ICT career. This first fully-fledged female apprenticeship is a pioneering approach to boosting participant and showcasing untapped talent. The programme aims to engage female tech enthusiasts. On completion apprentices will have acquired the tech skills and qualifications to commence a successful ICT career.

Click here for more information

Gender Diversity Bursary

Employers get a €3,000 grant for every apprentice employed, but an extra bonus grant of €2,666 will be given to employers who hire female apprentice plasterers, plumbers, butchers, mechanics, sous chefs, industrial electrical engineers, and other trades which are currently 80% male or more.

On the flip side, more than 80% of hairdressing apprentices are women, so the same incentive would apply to boost the number of men entering this profession.

It would be good to let an employer know this when trying to secure an apprenticeship!

Pre-Apprenticeship Course

If you would like to do an apprenticeship but don’t have the minimum entry requirements e.g. Junior Cert, then this course would be worth exploring.

The Pre-Apprenticeship course offers you the opportunity to gain the qualification needed to begin an apprenticeship or to proceed to further education at level 4 and beyond. The course is comparable to Junior Certificate. It offers both hands-on and classroom based modules and aims to develop skills, knowledge and expertise to gaining an apprenticeship in a range of trades or industries. For information you can contact SOLAS or your local Youthreach would be a good place to start. e.g. Dun Laoghaire Community Training Centre Pre-Apprenticeship Training Course

If you have any questions about Apprenticeships e.g. how to find an employer, you can chat online to a trained Youth Information Officer or leave us a message and we can get back to you.

We look at Apprenticeships in greater detail in another post.

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