The Development of Students’ Employability Skills on a Work-Based Software Engineering Degree Programme

Work-based degree programmes are seen as a means of addressing the reported lack of employability skills in Computing Science (CS) graduates. In the UK, work-based CS degree programmes – or apprenticeships – were established to close this skills gap. In Scotland, a national ‘meta-skills’ framework has been developed, comprising twelve employability skills (for example, ‘Adapting’, ‘Communicating’) grouped under three headings (Self management, Social intelligence, and Innovation). This paper explores how a cohort of Software Engineering apprentices (N = 30) developed these meta-skills during their time in the workplace, across the first year of their programme. Apprentices were asked to report on the meta-skills they felt they had developed most in the workplace, with reference to the published framework. The most prevalent skill said to have been developed in the workplace was ‘Communicating’, followed by ‘Focusing’ and ‘Adapting’, both of which fall under the heading of ‘Self management’. The data presented here illustrate how students developed their meta-skills while working as apprentice Software Engineers. Meanwhile, a significant emergent theme that appears to underpin the development of many of these meta-skills is confidence. This work provides evidence of how a Software Engineering apprenticeship may develop specific employability skills. It supports assumptions about the benefits of work-based learning in computing education, and suggests that apprenticeships may help address the employability skills deficit in CS graduates.