Apply for the Business Apprenticeship Pilot 2

A two-year applied programme to build a more capable, trusted operator inside your business.

Develop an emerging team member who understands how your business works, builds sounder judgement and takes on meaningful responsibility over time.

The Business Apprenticeship connects structured learning with real business work, sponsor mentoring and feedback. It is not simply a collection of courses: it is a deliberate investment in practical capability that your business can use.

What your investment includes:

Sponsor and apprentice onboarding and alignment: Establish the business context, development priorities and a meaningful starting responsibility.

A two-year, 12-module applied programme: Build broader business understanding, commercial judgement, operational capability and systems thinking across four stages of development.

Learning connected to real business work: Apply learning to relevant responsibilities, decisions, projects and challenges inside your organisation.

Sponsor support for business alignment: Connect the apprentice’s development to the enterprise’s priorities and the work they are growing into.

An Apprentice Portal: Track progress, practical application and outcomes as learning develops into useful contribution.

Sponsor participation: Take part in relevant sessions and practical discussions so the business and apprentice build shared understanding.

What you need to commit:

An apprentice prepared to participate: The emerging team member needs the motivation and capacity to engage with learning, apply it to real work and reflect on their progress.

A named sponsor: A founder, manager or senior operator provides holistic business context, mentoring, regular feedback and appropriate decision boundaries.

Meaningful work: Provide a real responsibility, recurring process or bounded project through which the apprentice can learn and contribute.

Protected application time: Make room for learning to be used, reviewed and improved—not continually displaced by urgent day-to-day demands.

A two-year commitment: Enrolment covers both years of the programme. Payment is split into annual instalments, with the second-year invoice emailed before Year 2 begins. No automatic payment is taken.

The two-year capability journey

A structured progression from understanding the business to taking on meaningful responsibility. With real work, mentoring and feedback throughout.

Prepare & Start Well

Align the sponsor and apprentice around the business context, development priorities and a meaningful first responsibility. Agree how mentoring, feedback and practical application will work.

Year 1 — Understand the business

Build a working understanding of how the business creates value, how its key building blocks connect and what the financial numbers are saying.

Develop the judgement to investigate business questions and bring back useful answers.

Year 1 — Contribute with confidence

Develop marketing, sales and communication skills, alongside legal and ESG awareness.

Apply these skills to customer and stakeholder work, while learning to recognise risks and when specialist advice is needed.

Year 2 — Take ownership of useful work

Build leadership, improvement and digital capability through smaller projects and recurring processes.

Develop greater independence, with clear expectations, appropriate decision boundaries and sensible escalation.

Months 10–12 — Fourth connected cycle

Bring resilience, systems thinking and execution skills together.

Learn to connect priorities, people and day-to-day work, contribute to business decisions and help carry meaningful responsibility.

Bring the learning together

After the core modules, complete a final Business Impact Project focused on a meaningful business priority.

Demonstrate how the learning has been applied, what contribution has been made and what needs to continue or improve.

Responsibility grows through demonstrated capability—not simply because a module has been completed.

Your investment:

Pilot 2 founding rate — €4,980 per year

A two-year programme, paid annually.

Total two-year investment: €9,960, excluding taxes.

Your first payment covers Year 1.

Year 2 is invoiced separately before the second year begins. No automatic payment is taken.

Annual billing splits the payment—not the programme commitment. Enrolment is for the full two-year journey.

Need help before completing payment?

Email ash@pragmaticpeople.co with your question.

Year 1 payment:

*Prices exclude taxes.

This payment covers Year 1 of the two-year Business Apprenticeship. Year 2 is invoiced separately; no automatic payment is taken.

Payment is followed by a suitability assessment. If we do not accept your application following that assessment, we will refund your Year 1 payment in full.

What happens next:

Complete your Year 1 payment securely through Stripe.
Receive the next steps for the sponsor, apprentice and business suitability assessment.
Complete the assessment so we can confirm whether the programme is the right fit.
Once accepted, arrange the sponsor and apprentice onboarding and alignment session.
Agree the starting priorities, practical responsibilities and mentoring arrangements, then begin when the programme starts.

The right fit comes first

After payment, we assess sponsor, apprentice and business fit before confirming acceptance into Pilot 2.

We check that:

• The apprentice is willing and able to engage with the learning, apply it to real work and receive feedback.

• A named sponsor can provide business context, mentoring, regular feedback and appropriate decision boundaries.

• The business can provide meaningful work, relevant information and protected time for learning and practical application.

• The programme matches the business’s development needs and expectations.

The apprentice does not need to arrive with all the answers. We are assessing whether the conditions for useful learning and contribution are in place—not whether their capability is already fully developed.

Where a gap can reasonably be resolved, we will discuss the changes needed before confirming acceptance.

If we determine through the initial suitability assessment that these conditions cannot reasonably be established, we will explain why, decline the application and refund your Year 1 payment in full. You will have no Year 2 payment obligation.

Knowledge Transfer Guarantee

If your Business Apprentice leaves before completing the first year, you may nominate another suitable team member to continue the programme at no additional programme fee.

Where practical, the replacement can catch up on the learning completed to date and join the current cohort. If joining the current cohort is no longer practical, they may start again with a future cohort at no additional programme fee.

This helps protect your business’s learning investment and supports continued capability-building if the original apprentice leaves.

Replacement participation is subject to assessment, reasonable timing, available cohort places and confirmation that the proposed participant is suitable for the programme and that the business can provide appropriate sponsor support. Any catch-up plan will be agreed based on the stage of the programme and the learner’s starting point.