After recognising a gap in our apprenticeship programme, we are pleased to announce that, following discussions with private sector and other government departments, a new DevOps engineer apprenticeship scheme will open for applications later this year. This is how and why it came about.
Apprentices are our future digital leaders
HMRC has been running digital apprenticeships schemes since 2014. Some may think we do it to just to do our bit for the government apprenticeships drive, but it’s so much more than that.
Our apprentices are our future digital leaders. They are the ones who will drive the next innovations in our digital transformation. To achieve this, we need to ensure that they have the skills, knowledge and experience to equip them to be the digital professionals for future business projects.
What is DevOps?
We use a DevOps approach to all our work. If that’s new to you, DevOps is about bringing together two different parts of the IT organisation, those who develop the software and those who support it in the live environment. The DevOps engineer encapsulates both disciplines.
Most DevOps engineers either start out as software developers or system administrators who have a passion for coding. There is no formal path to become a DevOps engineer.
Identifying a skills gap
Our Head of Digital Operations, Andrew Sheppard, recognised these skills gap some time ago and initiated training for Level 4 software developer apprentices to help them learn DevOps way of working. At the same time, Andrew canvassed opinion across government and the private sector as to why a DevOps standard didn’t exist. He asked if others would be interested in creating something specifically tailored for building and operating modern cloud infrastructure platforms.
Andrew met with a very positive response and formed the Trailblazer Group. In January this year, under the guidance of the Institute for Apprenticeships (IfA), the group submitted a proposal for a new Level 4 DevOps Engineer standard.
Andrew says:
I am thrilled to announce that it has since been accepted. We still have some work to do in order to get the full standard submitted and accepted but we are on track to have a consumable standard by the end of this calendar year.
Each employer organisation, whether public or private sector, large company or SME, will be able to take advantage of the new offering to help build internal capability. It's a long-term strategy that should help organisations reduce their dependency on the contractor market.
More details to come
The development of this standard is incredibly exciting. And for HMRC to be leading the way shows our commitment to investing in our people to ensure they are the best in the business – with the skills, knowledge and expertise to take them, and us, into the digital future.
Please watch this space for more details later in the year. We will let you know when the standard is live and when recruitment opens.
Check out our current vacancies. They're updated regularly so worth keeping an eye on.
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