Built by apprentices. Shaped by evidence. Designed for progression.
Apprentis is a workforce readiness technology company helping people prepare for apprenticeship and early-career opportunities, while helping institutions identify readiness needs, target development and understand progress over time.
It was founded from direct experience of the distance between discovering an opportunity, becoming ready for it and progressing after entry.
Opportunity creates access. Readiness helps turn access into progression.
Talent is widely distributed. Readiness support is not.
Routes are difficult to see
Apprenticeships can create routes into meaningful employment, professional development and higher education without requiring a conventional university pathway. But those routes are not equally visible or equally easy to navigate.
Expectations are difficult to decode
Many people are expected to make important career decisions without fully understanding how apprenticeships work, where credible opportunities can be found, what strong applications require, or how professional environments operate.
Progress is difficult to understand
Schools, universities, training providers and employers can measure applications, attendance, achievement and completion. They have less consistent visibility into the professional readiness connecting those stages.
Readiness should not depend on knowing the right person, understanding an unwritten process or entering the workplace already knowing how to navigate it.
Apprentis was created to address that gap.
One system connecting opportunity, preparation and progression.
Apprentis is not a conventional job board, generic careers platform or automated selection gate. It is building a workforce readiness layer across education and employment.
Personalised pathway guidance
Helping people understand apprenticeship and early-career routes in the context of their goals, strengths and circumstances. Participants can explore sectors, discover employers and clarify their next step through personalised guidance.
Structured readiness insight
Giving people and institutions a clearer view of where readiness is strong and where understanding, preparation, communication or confidence may still be developing. This sits alongside academic and technical assessment and professional judgement.
Targeted preparation and development
Turning readiness findings into practical support. Apprentis helps people prepare for selection, communicate professionally, develop workplace confidence and take greater ownership of their progression.
Progress and outcome visibility
Helping institutions see what support was needed, what changed and what should happen next, from first engagement through to progression after entry.
Apprentis began with lived experience.
Iyioluwa Adesan
Founder and CEO
Degree apprenticeship graduation
Limited UCAS points and international tuition-fee requirements made the conventional university route difficult for Iyioluwa Adesan to access. Rather than abandon his ambitions, he pursued a degree apprenticeship.
Iyioluwa joined NatWest Group's Digital and Innovation apprenticeship programme, gaining access to employment, education and professional development at the same time.
As he progressed from Digital and Innovation Apprentice to Digital Journey Manager, the underlying problem became clearer. People were not lacking talent. They were navigating pathways that assumed knowledge, confidence and exposure they had not yet had the opportunity to develop.
In 2024, Iyioluwa left NatWest to build Apprentis full-time.
Restricted conventional route
Limited UCAS points and international tuition-fee requirements
Degree apprenticeship
NatWest Group Digital and Innovation programme
NatWest progression
Digital and Innovation Apprentice to Digital Journey Manager
Built Apprentis
Left NatWest in 2024 to build full-time
Bolu Olawaye
Co-Founder and COO
Degree apprenticeship graduation
Bolu Olawaye reached the same mission through a different route. His early working life included warehouse roles, after-school clubs and shifts at McDonald's. He also left university after deciding the traditional pathway was not right for him.
Discovering degree apprenticeships changed his direction. Bolu completed a degree apprenticeship through Howden Group and the University of East London, beginning his corporate career in technology before progressing into insurance and commercial roles.
His experience reinforced a central Apprentis belief: people can appear directionless simply because nobody has shown them the routes available to them.
Bolu joined Apprentis to make opportunity more visible, particularly for ambitious people whose potential may remain hidden because they do not yet know which pathways exist or how to access them.
Non-linear starting point
Warehouse, after-school clubs, McDonald's, then left university
Discovered apprenticeships
Found a different route through degree apprenticeships
Howden progression
Degree apprenticeship via Howden Group and University of East London
Built Apprentis
Joined to make opportunity more visible for others
Together, Iyioluwa and Bolu began building the platform they wished had existed when they started. One shaped by lived experience and built to break the cycle of:
“You do not know what you do not know.”
The LEO Framework
Apprenticeships are often described as an opportunity to learn while earning. Apprentis adds a third dimension: Own.
Learn
The capability stage
Build the skills, knowledge and professional behaviours that turn a new starter into a credible contributor.
Earn
The value stage
Move from participant to contributor. Demonstrate capability and build a track record at work.
Own
The identity stage
Take authorship of your own career. Develop a professional voice and build networks with intention.
Learn builds capability. Earn turns capability into contribution. Own turns experience into professional direction.
The LEO Framework extends the familiar apprenticeship proposition for a workforce in which technical capability alone may not be enough to make potential visible.
Explore the LEO FrameworkThe principles shaping the system.
Built through direct support, recorded outcomes and continuing research.
10,000+
Young people reached
3,000+
Young people directly supported
500+
Structured one-to-one consultations
300+
Confirmed apprenticeship outcomes
These figures represent distinct measures of reach, direct student support and recorded outcomes.
Research across the UK and Sub-Saharan Africa
Apprentis publishes research into apprenticeship awareness, professional communication, workforce readiness and work-based learning in the UK and Sub-Saharan Africa. This growing body of work includes baseline research, matched intervention studies and international exploration of awareness, barriers and demand.
Explore Research and InsightsSpecialist guidance. Current apprentice insight.
Kara Gooch
Strategic Adviser
Workforce development, intervention design and apprentice progression.
Her experience supports programmes that strengthen workplace capability and help apprentices progress after entry.
LinkedIn
Sian Jeffery
Strategic Adviser
Work-integrated learning, inclusive progression and non-linear learner journeys.
Her experience supports readiness pathways that strengthen confidence and connect learning with professional capability and progression.
LinkedIn
Delegate
AI Technology Partner
Delegate supports selected matching, guidance and conversational capabilities within the Apprentis participant experience. Apprentis retains responsibility for its product architecture, assessment methodology, governance and consequential decision-making.
Visit DelegateFounding Voices
Apprentis is also informed by current apprentices across technology, construction, finance, real estate and professional services. These Founding Voices contribute lived insight to research, events and programme development, helping Apprentis remain connected to people currently navigating the journey.
Meet the People Shaping ApprentisBringing workforce readiness into wider conversations.
2026
Black Tech Achievement Awards
Diversity Champion
Iyioluwa Adesan was named Diversity Champion.
2026
Great British Entrepreneur Awards
John Caudwell Award Finalist
Iyioluwa Adesan and Apprentis were selected as finalists for the John Caudwell Award.
2025 and 2026
International Convening on the Apprenticeship Degree
University of Oxford
Apprentis contributed to the International Convening on the Apprenticeship Degree at the University of Oxford in 2025 and 2026.
2026
The Opportunity Gap
Portcullis House
Apprentis recorded a conversation with Bayo Alaba MP about the opportunity gap, place-based skills systems and the transition into work.
These activities reflect recognition and participation in public dialogue; they do not constitute political endorsement, government partnership or validation of Apprentis research.
Apprentis began by helping individuals navigate apprenticeship opportunities. It is developing into connected readiness infrastructure across education and employment, helping people understand their next step and helping institutions see where development can make the greatest difference.
We are still building: testing carefully, listening closely and remaining clear about what the evidence does and does not yet show.
Talent is already present. The system should make it visible, develop it deliberately and help it progress.
Built by apprentices. Shaped by evidence. Designed for progression.
Join the next stage of Apprentis