Holly Anderson, 23, is one of the first apprentices in the financial sector to benefit from the government’s recently established Trailblazer initiative, aimed at encouraging businesses to take on more trainees.
The Department for Business, Innovation & Skills is backing the New Model Business Academy and Babington Business College’s apprenticeship scheme, which has enabled Ms Anderson to learn while she works.
Ms Anderson, now a sales assistant at Surrey-based IFA firm Devereaux Montague, said she was inspired to go into the profession by her IFA father, who opened her eyes to a “dynamic” industry where the potential for growth “never really ends”.
She said: “There are many different exams that can be taken to allow me to advise on different products, to eventually gain chartered status, and further down the line there are options to become a paraplanner or even grow my own firm.”
Ms Anderson said she would not have been able to grasp key concepts on her way to becoming a professional adviser without the help of NMBA, part of advisory support services group SimplyBiz, and Babington Business College, a further education institution with 12 centres in the Midlands and the north.
Adviser View
Sarah Stone, an adviser with Essex-based Harbour Financial and a graduate of Sesame’s Financial Adviser School, said: “These types of initiatives are obviously a good idea. The FAS provided me with the structure to become an adviser. Without it I would have taken much longer to become qualified.”
