Privately Arranged Apprenticeships

An apprenticeship can be arranged directly with the proprietor of a clock or watchmaking business as a potentially valuable alternative to formal Trailblazer Apprenticeships, providing quality learning, enabling skills and knowledge to be mastered.

Such arrangements lack the safeguards of formal government-funded schemes where delivery is monitored by Ofsted and assessment is subjected to external quality control. An apprenticeship may be structured using, for example, the BHI Distance Learning Course and examinations, or perhaps less structured, where the employer devises a scheme to meet the needs of the business.

The Clockmaker’s Company arranges a limited number of three-year apprenticeships which follow the three grades of the BHI Distance Learning Course and the BHI examinations.

Please note, to be eligible for the scheme, a candidate must already have secured employment in the UK before making an application to the Charity.

A successful apprentice will meet the technical competence and experience requirements to become a qualified Member of the BHI (MBHI). The Company provides mentoring and financial assistance. If the employer is a Freeman or Liveryman of the Clockmakers’ Company, the apprentice can be registered with the Company through ‘binding’. The ceremony registers the apprenticeship in the Company’s Binding Book and is recorded in the minutes of the Court Meeting. This can be followed by the act of ‘inrolement’ at the Chamberlains Court. When the apprenticeship is successfully completed and eight years has elapsed since the ‘binding’, the apprentice may be admitted to the Freedom of the Company ‘by servitude’. If inrolement took place at the Chamberlain’s Court, the apprentice is also eligible for the Freedom of the City of London by servitude.

For employers who are not a Liveryman or Freeman of the Clockmakers’ Company, the apprentice is eligible for admission to the Clockmakers’ Company ‘by industry’ after eight years have elapsed from the commencement of the apprenticeship.