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If you want to drive a shared national prosperity by helping bridge the skills gap, join us today.

Hear from the Rt Hon Robert Halfon MP as to why he thinks being a part of The 5% Club is so important for organisations.

Join The Club today

We welcome employers from all sectors and all sizes of business.
Our entry level membership is free and open to any organisation committed to the ‘ethos’ of earn and learn.

The 5% Club offers two levels of membership:

Entry level, free at point of entry.
Enhanced Platinum, Gold, Silver and Bronze membership – awarded on an annual basis via our Employer Audit accreditation programme.

In 2021 we introduced a new membership initiative, the Employer Audit, which leads to bronze, silver, gold or Platinum membership. This is an annual process, launched every spring. If you are interested in membership, the immediate action would be to join as a basic level member (free at point of entry) and you will then be part of The 5% Club movement and can get involved in the annual Employer Audit when we launch again in the spring.

We will continue to offer our basic, ‘free at point of entry’ membership (to retain the dynamic nature of our movement of committed employers, now 1,000 plus) but we aim for most of our members to escalate their membership to Platinum, gold, silver or bronze status.

“The employer audit gave us the opportunity to review and reflect on best practice and prompted a few changes in approach, such as closer attention to upskilling Apprentices as well as new entrants”.

Tony Ellender, Emerging Talent Manager, Balfour Beatty

“adi Group are tremendously proud of our apprenticeship program and to be externally recognised by The 5% Club as a Gold award winner is not only a great accolade, but more importantly, supports our business’ on-going commitment to the next generation of engineers”

James Sopwith, Group Strategic Account Director, adi Group

“The employer audit was straight forward, however it made you think about your current apprentices and future plans, which is very positive. Being awarded Gold with The 5% Club shows our commitment to delivering quality apprenticeship programmes and highlights to young people that we will invest in their future.”

Ceri Travers, Early Careers Manager, Breedon

“Taking part in the audit enabled us to scrutinise our practices and realise how well we are doing as a business to attract, encourage and support trainees in the workplace. It was interesting to see the results of the benchmarking research which inspired us to continue to try to achieve even better results in a competitive market and explore different approaches to retaining and promoting our trainees internally.”

Karen Jones, Group HR Director, Redrow Homes Ltd

“Here at RS Components we are so proud to be among the Gold members of The 5% club. We as a business have felt very supported by The 5% Club since joining and have benefitted greatly by our affiliation with them. The whole audit process was not only simple but also eye opening in showing us what information we do and don’t have on our apprentices.”

Tim Beasley, Apprenticeship Programme Manager, RS Components Ltd

“The 5% Club audit was easy to complete, and our gold award represents our continued commitment to apprentices in the engineering sector. We will continue annually to strive for this award, it great to have a data figure to meet in the business. Being members of The 5% Club and Gold award status also supports our on-going company strategy – Developing the engineers of the future.”

Estee Ross, HR Director, Warren Services Ltd

Why join The 5% Club Movement?

There are a wide range of benefits to being part of The 5% Club.

How to join as a basic member

Our joining process is simple and there are two quick and easy steps to becoming a member.

Step One

We ask members (HRD/CEO) to sign our Charter, pledging voluntary commitment to our goals. As a member of The 5% Club we are:

Committed to helping the country’s growth agenda and acknowledge the importance of developing our people as both an employer and a social imperative.
Playing our part in addressing youth unemployment and skills shortage.
Pledging to work toward having a minimum 5% of our UK workforce enrolled on formalised apprentice, sponsored student and/or graduate development schemes within five years.
Measuring and reporting on our progress annually against the above metric in our Corporate Responsibility section of our Annual Report and Accounts or equivalent document/website.
Committed to encouraging other employers to participate in the campaign.

Step Two

We ask members for a breakdown of numbers, specifically:

Total UK workforce;
Number of employees currently studying for apprenticeships;
Number of employees on a formal graduate programmes;
Number of sponsored students (i.e. year in industry placements, trainees/cadets on a part-time, externally accredited course that lasts for an academic year such as HNC/HND/BSc/MSc/PhD and whose fees are paid by the employer). From 2024 we now include T Level placements in our ‘earn and learn’ data.

Please note: If you are a Flexi-Job Apprenticeship Agency you are welcome to join The Club as an entry level member. However, for purposes of our Employer Audit we would count your apprentice numbers as belonging to the company in which they are placed for the duration (or majority) of their apprenticeship. If the apprentice is placed in more than one company, they can only be counted once.