"I had a lot of people telling me university was the way to go," says Travis Williams, "but with my learning style, working with technology helps me understand it better."
Mr. Williams is an apprentice at Virgin O2, one of about 740,400 apprentices across England.
For school leavers who don't want to—or can't—go to university, apprenticeships offer an alternative path into many tech companies.
Mr. Williams joined Virgin Media O2 as a cybersecurity apprentice a year and a half ago. Before that, he earned A levels in IT and cybersecurity at college and then worked at another college in IT, mainly providing helpdesk support.
Now, Mr. Williams is responsible for setting up, maintaining, and monitoring security systems at Virgin Media O2 for both network and data center infrastructure. He's become the go-to person if there is a problem in the Intrusion Prevention System, which monitors the network for unauthorized activities.
"If there's an issue with that, they'll come to me or one of my colleagues," he says. "It's a lot of responsibility, but it's very exciting to have that experience."
What was the company looking for in him? "Not so much someone who has all the answers, but someone who shows interest and a willingness to learn as much as possible," says Mr. Williams. "Mentioning that I played around with [network analysis] tools at home helped to show that."
"The best thing about an apprenticeship is being able to learn the skills you need and sometimes apply them the very same day," he says. "I think university is great, but it will never give you that working experience."