Matthew Barr, Head of Education & Practice at the University of Glasgow’s School of Computing Science, offers reflections on apprenticeships.
Want to know the secret to developing employability skills that traditional degrees struggle to teach? It’s simpler than you might think: get students out of the classroom and into real workplaces.
After analysing years of reflective essays from our software engineering apprentices, we’ve observed something quite striking. These undergraduate work-based students don’t just pick up technical skills – they undergo a fundamental transformation in how they communicate, adapt and think professionally. And the key ingredient? Structured reflection on their workplace experiences.
‘The Confidence Connection’
One thing that really stood out for us was how confidence emerged as the invisible thread connecting all professional skill development. When apprentices talked about improving their communication, adapting to new challenges, or taking initiative, they almost always linked it back to growing confidence.
Take communication skills, for example. In traditional university settings, students might give presentations to familiar classmates. But imagine being thrust into daily stand-ups with senior developers, code reviews with experienced engineers, or client meetings where real money is on the line. As one apprentice put it: “I’ve grown more versatile, resilient, and empathetic, allowing me to collaborate effectively with diverse team members from across the world.”
This isn’t the polished presentation practice of a university classroom – it’s the messy, high-stakes reality of professional (and effective) communication.
Beyond the classroom: skills you can’t simulate
Our research has identified three skills that apprentices developed most strongly, none of which are exclusive to software engineering:
1. Communicating
From writing concise emails that actually get responses to explaining complex code in team meetings, apprentices learned communication by doing it daily in contexts where it truly mattered. Indeed, communication and social skills were some of the competencies most frequently identified by our apprentices as having been developed in the workplace.
2. Focusing
Juggling multiple projects, competing deadlines, and constant interruptions forced apprentices to develop sophisticated time management strategies. Many discovered techniques like “time boxing” and calendar blocking – not because a lecturer told them to, but because they needed these tools to survive in the workplace.
3. Adapting
Nothing teaches adaptability quite like being assigned to different teams, learning new technologies on the fly, or having your entire team restructured mid-project. As one apprentice noted: “One of the many skills I have developed solely at the workplace is the ability to quickly context switch between different streams of work”.
‘The reflection revolution’
But here’s the crucial part: these skills didn’t develop automatically just from being in the workplace. The magic happened when apprentices were required to reflect on their experiences.
Through structured reflective writing, apprentices:
- Connected workplace challenges to university learning
- Identified patterns in their skill development
- Recognised how confidence underpinned their growth
- Planned future learning based on workplace needs.
This reflection transformed tacit learning into explicit knowledge. Instead of just “getting better at meetings”, apprentices could articulate exactly how and why their communication skills improved.
Why traditional degrees fall short
University programmes excel at teaching theory and foundational knowledge. But when it comes to professional skills like stakeholder communication, cross-team collaboration, or working under commercial pressure, simulation only goes so far.
Apprenticeships provide what universities cannot:
- ‘Real-world’ consequencesfor poor communication or missed deadlines
- Authentic complexityof juggling multiple projects and stakeholders
- Professional contextwhere skills develop out of necessity, not assignment requirements
- Immediate applicationof learning in high-stakes situations
Implications for the future
We think the evidence is clear: degree-level apprenticeships develop professional skills in ways traditional programmes struggle to match, regardless of subject area. But it’s not just about placing students in workplaces – it’s about creating structured opportunities for reflection that help them make sense of their experiences.
For educators, this suggests we need to:
- Embed more authentic workplace experiences in traditional programmes
- Maximise the use of structured reflection opportunities for any work-based learning
- Recognise confidence-building as fundamental to skill development
- Design assessments that capture professional growth, not just domain knowledge
The future of higher education isn’t choosing between university or workplace learning – it’s thoughtfully combining both, with reflection as the bridge between them.
What professional skills do you think are hardest to develop in traditional university settings? Have you seen the difference that real workplace experience makes?
Matthew Barr is Head of Education & Practice at the University of Glasgow’s School of Computing Science, and leads the Graduate Apprenticeship in Software Engineering. His first book, Graduate Skills and Game-Based Learning, was published in 2019. An edited collection, Approaches to Work-Based Learning in Higher Education, followed in 2024.
References
Andrei, O., Barr, M., Nabi, S. W., & Morrison, A. (2025). Understanding Skill Transfer Between University and Workplace Through Reflective Practice: A Software Engineering Work-Based Learning Experience. Proceedings of the 30th ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education V. 1, 368–374. https://doi.org/10.1145/3724363.3729119
Barr, M., Andrei, O., Morrison, A., & Nabi, S. W. (2024). The Development of Students’ Professional Competencies on a Work-Based Software Engineering Program. Proceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 1, 81–87. https://doi.org/10.1145/3626252.3630944
Barr, M., & Nabi, S. W. (2022). The Development of Students’ Employability Skills on a Work-Based Software Engineering Degree Programme. 2022 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE56618.2022.9962611
Barr, M., Nabi, S. W., & Andrei, O. (2025). The Development of Reflective Practice on a Work-Based Software Engineering Program: A Longitudinal Study. 53–61. https://doi.org/10.1109/CSEET66350.2025.00012
Framework for Embedding Employability
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