Amazon is launching a £2.5 million Apprenticeship Fund as part of its commitment to support career opportunities and skills development across England. By using the company’s Apprenticeship Levy to support small businesses selling on Amazon, Amazon Web Services (AWS) customers and smaller creative industry partners, these organisations outside of Amazon will be able to upskill their workforce by taking on their own dedicated apprentices.

Amazon will work directly with businesses to help boost their productivity, sales, exports and marketing skills for the digital age, by taking on apprentices who will undertake training in these areas.

The Apprenticeship Fund is expected to help create an additional 200 apprenticeship opportunities in 2021. These new roles are available in digital marketing, business administration, post-production technical operators, visual effects artists, broadcast and media technicians, DevOps engineers, AI data specialists, software development, data analysts and cyber security technologists and more.

As part of the Apprenticeship Fund, Amazon is offering support for 50 apprentices at AWS customers when they take on AWS re/Start graduates in IT technical apprenticeship roles, such as DevOps and IT Solutions, who will receive on-the-job training and a nationally recognised qualification at the end of the role.

Amazon is encouraging small businesses in the creative industries, together with AWS customers, small businesses selling on Amazon and local authorities that are interested in supporting new apprenticeship roles to email [email protected] where they will be put in touch with a member of the Amazon Apprenticeships team.