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Apprenticeships are a great way to launch a career, giving you both vital training and on-the-job experience.

Apprenticeships are available in all kinds of industries - from science, engineering and high-tech industries to drama, marketing or the law.

They can be springboards to all kinds of interesting careers. Here are six celebrities who started out as apprentices.

Steph McGovern

TV presenter Steph McGovern
Image caption,
Blown away. Steph McGovern designed a new leaf-blower when she was an apprentice engineer

These days Steph McGovern is best known as an award-winning journalist and TV presenter, but she started her working life with an engineering apprenticeship at Black & Decker, where her improvements to a brand of leaf-blower saved the company £150,000 a year.

While it might seem a long way from engineering to telly presenting, she’s often stressed the importance of her apprenticeship to her subsequent career: “My apprenticeship has had a huge impact on me, with the transferable skills I learned helping me in every job I have had,” she said. “From engineer, to work experience on Tomorrow’s World, to BBC reporter and now Channel 4 host.”

Sir Alex Ferguson

Former Manchester United manager, Sir Alex Ferguson.
Image caption,
Career goals. Sir Alex Ferguson started his career as an apprentice toolmaker

Sir Alex Ferguson was one of the most successful football managers in the sport’s history, winning 13 Premiership titles in his 26 seasons managing Manchester United. But he began his working life as an apprentice toolmaker at a typewriter factory in Glasgow, where he also honed his leadership skills as a .

Later he became a lifelong advocate for the benefits of apprenticeships: “It is only when you had the opportunity to have an apprenticeship that you realise the long term benefit,” he said in 2011. “Anyone who had that experience will have appreciated the skills they learned.”

Sir Michael Caine

Actor Michael Caine.
Image caption,
Talent on tap. Michael Caine started work as an apprentice plumber

He might be better known as the star of some of the biggest movie hits of all time, including The Italian Job and The Dark Knight trilogy, but if his career had gone a little differently you might have been calling on Sir Michael Caine to… fix your leaky taps.

After completing his national service, during which he saw action in the Korean War, Maurice Micklewhite spent two years as an apprentice plumber. Eventually he got a job as an assistant stage manager at the Westminster Repertory Company, later changed his name to Michael Caine, and a star was born.

Clare Smyth MBE

Chef Clare Smyth.
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Food for thought? Clare Smyth launched her cooking career with an apprenticeship

Clare Smyth is one of the UK’s most successful chefs and restaurateurs, as well as a regular on TV and radio.

She started her career, aged 16, as an apprentice chef at Grayshott Hall in Surrey before being offered a job by Gordon Ramsay. Within a few years she was running Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in 2007, becoming the first female chef to run a restaurant with three Michelin stars.

More recently she’s opened her own restaurant, Core By Clare Smyth, in Notting Hill, which itself was awarded three Michelin stars in 2021. And she provided the catering for the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

Sir Ian McKellen

Actor Ian McKellen
Image caption,
A class act. Sir Ian McKellen began his career with an acting apprenticeship

Going to drama school is one way to start a career showbusiness, but apprenticeships have been a great launchpad for many others, including Sir Ian McKellen.

Sir Ian began his career as an apprentice actor at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry, and made his professional debut in a production of Robert Bolt’s play A Man For All Seasons in 1961.

Since then he’s become one of film and theatre’s most celebrated stars, winning six Laurence Olivier awards for theatre performances, and being nominated for two Academy Awards.

Sir Billy Connolly

Comedian Billy Connoly waving at a tartan parade in New York City.
Image caption,
A funny old life. Billy Connolly started out as an apprentice welder

Billy Connolly is one of the best-loved Scottish comedians of all time. He began his working life serving a five-year apprenticeship as a welder in the Clyde shipyards, while simultaneously perfecting his performing talents, including playing the banjo - something his co-workers affectionately teased him for.

He left the shipyards in his early 20s, but has often talked about that time as his formative years: “Without the shipyards I would never have been a comedian,” he said in a BBC documentary about his life.

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