Apprentice Software Developer
THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER
Greater Manchester (M13 9PL)
Closes on Wednesday 22 July 2026
Posted on 2 June 2026
Contents
Summary
Our aim is to equip you with the strongest portfolio of developer skills to meet your aspirations and shape your future career. Key to this will be specialised training from top research technicians and engineers enabling you to become the best software developer whilst gaining a nationally recognised qualification.
- Wage
-
£25,249 a year
- Training course
- Digital and technology solutions professional (level 6)
- Hours
-
Monday - Friday 9.00am - 5.00pm (variable times to suit workplace requirements) with 1 hour for lunch.
35 hours a week
- Start date
-
Monday 7 September 2026
- Duration
-
4 years
- Positions available
-
1
Work
Most of your apprenticeship is spent working. You’ll learn on the job by getting hands-on experience.
What you'll do at work
As an Apprentice you will gain specialised training based on your individual aspirations and specific apprenticeship requirements. Supportive instruction and tuition from world leading technical staff and researchers will be provided to equip you with a range of diverse skills, whilst rotating through our specialist areas across the entire university.
Your successful development is pivotal to our programme objectives, university aims and your future career.
Day to day duties will include, but not be limited to the following:
- Software design principles using Single responsibility, Open-closed, Liskov substitution, Interface segregation and Dependency inversion (SOLID) and Object-Oriented Principles (OOP)
- Design methods and stakeholder communication including, requirements capture and analysis for user needs. Evaluating system feasibility, economic and technical analysis, and allocation of functions to system elements
- Software configuration management using good practices for development, version control, and documentation throughout processes
- Testing, verification, and validation methodologies to check specifications are met and fulfil intended purposes
- Fundamental structures of software systems including theoretical and practical aspects of software architecture
- Software and system maintenance procedures and practices
- Working as an agile and responsive developer in varied specialist areas
- Develop specialist knowledge and experience to meet the varying needs of researchers, staff, and students
- Communication skills not only in software development but personally enabling you to grow into your career
- Working with other specialist developers and independently to learn team dynamics and defined project roles
- Organisation and scheduling of your workload to meet deadlines and targets whilst handling constraints and solutions to meet customer needs
- Logic and reasoning to complete projects and assigned work to the standard set in a world leading environment
- Programme languages and paradigms, and techniques for identifying the most appropriate choice in each situation
Where you'll work
Oxford Road
Manchester
Greater Manchester
M13 9PL
Training
Apprenticeships include time away from working for specialist training. You’ll study to gain professional knowledge and skills.
Training provider
MANCHESTER METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY
Training course
Digital and technology solutions professional (level 6)
Understanding apprenticeship levels (opens in new tab)
What you'll learn
Course contents
- Analyse a business problem to identify the role of digital and technology solutions.
- Identify risks, determine mitigation strategies and opportunities for improvement in a digital and technology solutions project.
- Analyse a business problem in order to specify an appropriate digital and technology solution.
- Initiate, design, code, test and debug a software component for a digital and technology solution.
- Apply relevant standard processes, methods, techniques and tools. For example, ISO Standards, Waterfall, Agile in a digital and technology solution project.
- Manage digital and technology solutions projects. For example, identifying and resolving deviations from specification, applying appropriate Project Management methodologies.
- Work effectively within teams, leading on appropriate digital technology solution activities.
- Apply relevant organisational theories. For example, change management principles, marketing approaches, strategic practice, and IT service management to a digital and technology solutions project.
- Apply relevant security and resilience techniques to a digital and technology solution. For example, risk assessments, mitigation strategies.
- Initiate, design, implement and debug a data product for a digital and technology solution.
- Determine and use appropriate data analysis techniques. For example, Text, Statistical, Diagnostic or Predictive Analysis to assess a digital and technology solutions.
- Plan, design and manage simple computer networks with an overall focus on the services and capabilities that network infrastructure solutions enable in an organisational context.
- Report effectively to colleagues and stakeholders using the appropriate language and style, to meet the needs of the audience concerned.
- Research, investigate, and evaluate innovative technologies or approaches in the development of a digital and technology solution.
- Apply relevant legal, ethical, social and professional standards to a digital and technology solution.
- Identify and define software engineering problems that are non-routine and incompletely specified.
- Provide recommendations as to the most appropriate software engineering solution.
- Use appropriate analysis methods, approaches and techniques in software engineering projects to deliver an outcome that meets requirements.
- Implement software engineering projects using appropriate software engineering methods, approaches and techniques.
- Respond to changing priorities and problems arising within software engineering projects by making revised recommendations, and adapting plans as necessary, to fit the scenario being investigated.
- Determine, refine, adapt and use appropriate software engineering methods, approaches and techniques to evaluate software engineering project outcomes.
- Evaluate learning points arising from software engineering work undertaken on a project including use of methods, analysis undertaken, selection of approach and the outcome achieved, in order to identify both lessons learnt and recommendations for improvements to future projects.
- Extend and update software development knowledge with evidence from professional and academic sources by undertaking appropriate research to inform best practice and lead improvements in the organisation.
- Analyse client needs and determine how to advise them strategically through improved business processes, new ideas, or technology solutions.
- Effectively communicate value add to the client through a variety of media. For example, presentations, written reports, Storytelling in a professional setting through performing socio-technical process improvements in a range of environments.
- Make evidence based recommendations taking into account risks, costs, and benefits.
- Participate in walk-throughs for Information Technologies, to identify, document and evaluate key risks within a client’s organisation.
- Perform stakeholder analysis to identify, determine and deepen understanding of system requirements and develop client relationships.
- Effect change within an organisation through evaluation of a new system, process or initiative.
- Ensure legal and ethical requirements are accommodated in the development of digital and technology solutions.
- Evaluate the success of new systems, processes, or initiatives.
- Use requirements elicitation, analysis and documentation to produce an acceptable solution for business problems or further opportunities.
- Conduct Process Analysis, Definition, Mapping and Modelling within a business situation without supervision.
- Produce Use Cases which are of value to all stakeholders of a system.
- Use tools and benchmarking to support modelling and requirements gathering and recommend approaches to team members as required.
- Produce a business case to scope a proposed project including business benefits and recommendations.
- Use products of analysis in the design and development of a system.
- Evaluate the impacts of model selection and how they inter-relate with each other when generating business analytics.
- Recommend and use appropriate software tools to implement Business Analysis tasks and outcomes.
- Discover, identify and analyse security threats, attack techniques and vulnerabilities and recommend mitigation and security controls.
- Undertake security risk assessments for complex systems without direct supervision and propose a remediation strategy relevant to the context of the organisation.
- Recommend improvements to the cyber security approaches of an organisation based on research into future potential cyber threats and considering threat trends.
- Manage cyber security risk.
- Use appropriate cyber security technology, tools and techniques in relation to the risks identified.
- Lead cyber security awareness campaigns and evaluate their effectiveness.
- Analyse cyber security requirements against other design requirements for systems or products, identify conflicting requirements and recommend appropriate solutions with clear explanation of costs and benefits.
- Lead the design and build of systems in accordance with a security case to address organisational challenges.
- Define Data Requirements and perform Data Collection, Data Processing and Data Cleansing.
- Apply different types of Data Analysis, as appropriate, to drive improvements for specific business problems.
- Find, present, communicate and disseminate data analysis outputs effectively and with high impact through creative storytelling, tailoring the message for the audience. Visualise data to tell compelling and actionable narratives by using the best medium for each audience, such as charts, graphs and dashboards.
- Identify barriers to effective analysis encountered both by analysts and their stakeholders within data analysis projects.
- Apply a range of techniques for analysing quantitative data such as data mining, time series forecasting, algorithms, statistics and modelling techniques to identify and predict trends and patterns in data.
- Apply exploratory or confirmatory approaches to analysing data. Validate and and test stability of the results.
- Extract data from a range of sources. For example, databases, web services, open data.
- Analyse in detail large data sets, using a range of industry standard tools and data analysis methods.
- Identify and collate stakeholder needs in relation to computer network requirements, plans and designs.
- Plan, design, document, and develop the relevant elements of a computer network within an organisation or between organisations, taking into account customer requirements (performance, scale), constraints (budget, equipment availability), and define policies for their use.
- Monitor performance and ensure networks are configured correctly and perform as expected by designers or architects. Undertake capacity management and audit of IP addressing and hosted devices.
- Investigate, troubleshoot and resolve data network faults in local and wide area environments, using information from multiple sources, Physically or Remotely by console connection. Recommend and implement short term fixes to restore service and, or, quality of experience and recommend longer term changes to prevent recurrence or reduce impact of future occurrences.
- Implement computer networks from a design including testing and validation. This includes populating variables in configurations, for example, IP addresses and subsequent application of configuration to equipment such as routers, switches, firewalls.
- Secure network systems by establishing and enforcing policies, and defining and monitoring access. Support and administer firewall environments in line with IT security policy.
- Research and evaluate emerging network technologies and assess relevance to current network requirements. Provide an objective opinion on how new features and technologies may be incorporated as required by the organisation.
- Investigate security concerns or attacks. For example, Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS), port scanning, assessing key metrics and indicators, evidencing the chosen steps to mitigate.
- Analyse a business problem to identify the role of digital and technology solutions.
- Identify risks, determine mitigation strategies and opportunities for improvement in a digital and technology solutions project.
- Analyse a business problem in order to specify an appropriate digital and technology solution.
- Initiate, design, code, test and debug a software component for a digital and technology solution.
- Apply relevant standard processes, methods, techniques and tools. For example, ISO Standards, Waterfall, Agile in a digital and technology solution project.
- Manage digital and technology solutions projects. For example, identifying and resolving deviations from specification, applying appropriate Project Management methodologies.
- Work effectively within teams, leading on appropriate digital technology solution activities.
- Apply relevant organisational theories. For example, change management principles, marketing approaches, strategic practice, and IT service management to a digital and technology solutions project.
- Apply relevant security and resilience techniques to a digital and technology solution. For example, risk assessments, mitigation strategies.
- Initiate, design, implement and debug a data product for a digital and technology solution.
- Determine and use appropriate data analysis techniques. For example, Text, Statistical, Diagnostic or Predictive Analysis to assess a digital and technology solutions.
- Plan, design and manage simple computer networks with an overall focus on the services and capabilities that network infrastructure solutions enable in an organisational context.
- Report effectively to colleagues and stakeholders using the appropriate language and style, to meet the needs of the audience concerned.
- Research, investigate, and evaluate innovative technologies or approaches in the development of a digital and technology solution.
- Apply relevant legal, ethical, social and professional standards to a digital and technology solution.
Training schedule
In addition to your Level 6 apprenticeship qualification, we offer a unique 4 year apprenticeship programme filled to the brim with training opportunities such as, design and development principles for upcoming and existing research projects, problem solving to meet organisational need and development, problem analysis and research on exciting projects, programming in different languages including historic and current languages, deployment, and technical support of systems.
You will spend a mixture of time working alongside a day release course to gain the technical skills required to carry out your duties as a Software Development Technician. We will provide you with all the necessary tools and equipment, uniform, and robust training to make this the apprenticeship of your choice.
Requirements
Essential qualifications
GCSE in:
- English (grade 5 or equivalent)
- Mathematics (grade 5 or equivalent)
BTEC in:
Share if you have other relevant qualifications and industry experience. The apprenticeship can be adjusted to reflect what you already know.
Skills
- Communication skills
- IT skills
- Attention to detail
- Organisation skills
- Problem solving skills
- Number skills
- Analytical skills
- Team working
- Creative
- Initiative
- Strong work-ethic
- Independent working
- Desire to progress
- Computer literate - CSS, HTML
- Coding or Scripting Skills
Other requirements
We are strongly committed to promoting equality, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility and encourage all applicants to apply. Our university is positive about flexible working, blended working arrangements may be considered.
About this employer
One of the world’s leading universities built on research and teaching practices, coupled with one of the most respected apprenticeship programmes in the UK. Our programme builds its success’s year-on-year and continues to develop, matching the needs of the university and our community. We are proud of our strong reputation, supporting each of our apprentices with individualised training, specialised projects, and targeted development to build a future career at the cutting edge of technology.
Disability Confident
A fair proportion of interviews for this apprenticeship will be offered to applicants with a disability or long-term health condition. This includes non-visible disabilities and conditions.
You can choose to be considered for an interview under the Disability Confident scheme. You’ll need to meet the essential requirements to be considered for an interview.
After this apprenticeship
Upon completion of the apprenticeship in 5 years’ time, you will have a portfolio of key science and engineering skills and a wealth of varied, relevant experience.
Most apprentices are successful in securing a role with the university or choose to continue their academic studies. Whilst we cannot guarantee a permanent position at the University of Manchester, we endeavour to match apprentices with appropriate vacancies and support them through the entire application process.
Ask a question
The contact for this apprenticeship is:
MANCHESTER METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY
Apprenticeships@manchester.ac.uk
The reference code for this apprenticeship is VAC2000034489.
Apply now
Closes on Wednesday 22 July 2026