Ed, 27, is four months into a two year Junior Content Producer Level 3 Apprenticeship.

Through his apprenticeship, Ed will develop and create content that can be used across a variety of media platforms. Throughout his studies he will learn to research, prepare and develop media messaging to maximise audience engagement.

Just five months ago I could never have imagined that I would have landed on my feet in the council’s Communications Team as their Junior Content Producer Apprentice. What was initially a straight forward role on the face of it was, in reality, far from it — in the best way possible!

I had to quickly adapt my way of working to keep up with the pace of the team and to ensure that I wouldn’t run aground in my first few weeks.

When it comes to my day-to-day duties, no two days are the same — an expression that gets thrown around dubiously in a myriad of job advertisements — is wholly applicable with regards to this position. I can be desk-bound one day, scheduling in content for the upcoming week, and out recording podcasts with a variety of interesting people the next. The mix of work keeps it fresh and the hands on experience I am gaining is second to none.

A little about me…

I would start by saying that I have always been something of a late bloomer…

My first job out of school was at a bicycle shop — despite knowing very little about the mechanics of a bike I jumped at the opportunity. I enrolled at college and continued to work at the bike shop to gain more confidence. But it was during this time that my bigger passion which had been brewing for a lot longer, started to surface and that was… music. What started with jamming on the guitar with friends progressed to stealing hours on my brother’s computer and crudely putting together my own productions, eventually refining my music production skills that would lead me to half a million views on YouTube.

I thought I would give university a go and after a successful interview I secured a place. After three years studying I gained a first-class honours in music production, achieving the highest marks in my year group.

After graduating, I was fortunate enough to gain a summer internship at my university, creating content for and controlling the different social media channels used by the music production course.

This opened my eyes to a whole new set of opportunities to look out for — at which point I saw an advertisement for ‘junior content producer’, an apprenticeship with Liverpool City Council, so I leapt at the chance to further understand the world I’d stumbled into. As you may have guessed, I got the job.

Finding my sea legs…

After having worked at a somewhat leisurely pace during my internship at the university I knew that the next ship I had boarded wasn’t going to be smooth sailing straight from the off — and it wasn’t. For starters, I was immediately hit with the efficiency and preparedness and general team spirit of the communications team, where I’d been deployed. This gave me a real insight to the inner workings and many layers of the council — my previous understanding of the council revolved around wheelie bins and parking tickets.

If you’ve ever seen the TV series ‘Parks and Recreation’ and pondered why your council didn’t seem to care as much as the show’s main character, ‘Leslie Knope’ — think again.

Within my first week of the apprenticeship I’d already crossed paths with innumerable caring public servants, with a genuine desire to help the people of their city.

Quite often when people think of apprenticeships they assume they’re for young people, fresh out of school, looking to learn a trade. Whilst this is a hugely rewarding part of apprenticeships, they’re so much more than that — they’re for all age groups and for a variety of different professions. They’re an opportunity to learn in the most hands-on capacity there is, whilst getting paid to do so.

I couldn’t have learned what I’ve learned at the council through revising or taking exams.

I could spend hours reading a book on a subject and only retain the last sentence read — though my brain is exceptionally sieve-like. For me, the only way I can properly learn is to do, and during my apprenticeship I have been doing a lot.