Microsoft Traineeship Program creates new skills stream of cloud-ready professionals
Mark Leigh
One Commercial Partner Lead
Microsoft Australia
I’m incredibly proud to share that today we launched the Microsoft Traineeship Program. This program, in association with our Australian Partner Community, will help many more Australians take their first step into a technology career and in the process help tackle Australia’s digital skills gap.
Organisations of all sizes in all sectors are on a digital transformation journey – and key to their success is finding the right people to support them. This is why our Australian partner network is so important. But our partners often tell us that finding enough people with relevant technology skills can be a challenge – in fact three quarters of them have told us that. That’s one reason why we’ve developed the Microsoft Traineeship Program (MTP) which is an important first step, in so many ways.
The MTP will combine a Certificate IV in Information Technology with paid work experience. It’s going to prepare school leavers and people seeking a career change to play key roles in the digital economy by providing them with the sorts of skills our partners and their customers need.
The Australian Computer Society has forecast that demand for ICT professionals will grow by almost 100,000 to around three quarters of a million people by 2023. Another 2.25 million Australians will be working in roles that regularly use technology.
Earlier this year we announced our National Skills Program designed to help today’s workers prepare for tomorrow’s more digital and cloud-first world. The MTP builds on that by creating a new stream of IT professionals. At present Australian universities produce 5,000 ICT graduates each year – but business is crying out for even more people with technology skills. Unless we tackle this issue together, Microsoft and our partners will be hard pressed to find the people we need to accelerate Australia’s digital transformation.
The MTP brings together Microsoft, MEGT, Prodigy Learning and TAFE NSW to find, train and manage 150 trainees in the first intake in Sydney.
And there’s a really important role for our partners to play by taking on a trainee. Over the 12-24 months that the trainees will be with you, you have the opportunity to boost their formal learning with on-the-job insights and experience, paying a single monthly fee per trainee that covers wages, superannuation, training and the like. At the end of the course you have the option – but not the obligation – to offer them a full-time job.
Graduates from the program will be cloud ready, and just one exam away from becoming a Microsoft Certified Azure Administrator.
The first 50 traineeship opportunities have been snapped up by ANZ Bank, Datacom, DXC, MOQdigital, oobe, XCentral and Veritec – and we will be taking some trainees on at Microsoft as well.
I’d encourage each and every Microsoft partner to consider hosting a trainee. The MTP has been designed so that everyone benefits – the participants, our partners and the broader business community from access to additional skills. For school leavers or people looking for a career change this offers the perfect entrée to a whole new career with the opportunity to have real impact.
Taking on a trainee is a great investment in the individual and an even better investment in your business, giving you the opportunity to grow a more diverse, and highly talented team, while boosting your businesses’ access to skills, particularly Azure skills, and ultimately increasing your pool of Microsoft Certified Professionals.
The logistics of the MTP mean that each trainee will be employed by MEGT which will recruit, screen, employ and support the trainee throughout the course. Prodigy Learning will deliver the training to each individual, overseen by TAFE NSW.
With the admin taken care of, the risks of finding the right person reduced, and the professional development in hand, partners are able to support the trainee with an on-the-job practical learning experience. We’re starting the rollout of the MTP in Sydney in early 2019, with plans to eventually make it more broadly available across Australia.
We’re really proud of this initiative and the trainees and partners now coming on board and hope that you will give it serious consideration. For further information and to get started on your MTP journey, please visit: microsoft.com.au/traineeship-program. If you have any questions, please contact Beth Worrall on Beth.Worrall@microsoft.com.
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