ROYAL Mail is to recruit around 1,000 trainee posties.

The launch of the Postal Apprenticeship scheme has been announced which represents one of the UK's largest intake of apprentices.

The scheme, which will result in a Level 2 certification and a permanent role for those successful, is also said to offer a broad range of transferable skills and experience.

Areas such as customer services, industry knowledge, and lessons in financial budgeting and health and wellbeing will be covered.

The role will consist of day-to-day duties as a delivery postman or woman with additional time spent completing learning towards the apprenticeship.

Around 80 per cent of the apprenticeship will take the form of on-the-job training with the remaining 20 per cent being online learning towards the Level 2 apprenticeship certification.

Royal Mail has been running an apprenticeship programme successfully in fleet, engineering and other parts of the business for a number of years.

However, the Postal Apprenticeship initiative represents one of the largest single apprenticeship programmes in the UK.

It harks back to the days of the former 'Postal Cadet Scheme' which stopped in 1996 with the Royal Mail wanting to 'build on that history and bring fresh talent to the organisation'.

The apprenticeship recruitment programme will run from September 2021 and last 13 months.

Ricky McAulay, operations development director, said: “We couldn’t be prouder to launch our Postal Apprenticeship Scheme at a time when the pandemic continues to take a heavy toll on career opportunities across the country.

"We’ve placed a real emphasis on ensuring that our scheme has a range of transferable skills so that successful candidates can take what they learn with them for the rest of their careers.

“Having started my work at Royal Mail as a Postal Cadet in 1986, I know the benefit that these initiatives can have on a career I look forward to seeing these aspiring apprentices join us at Royal Mail.”

The initial cohort of 500 apprentices will begin in September, with up to a further 500 roles being allocated across the business from in the new year.

The scheme opens for applications on June 28. Visit jobs.royalmailgroup.com