Portsmouth & Chichester Apprenticeship Awards 2026

The Portsmouth & Chichester Apprenticeship Awards return to the Portsmouth Marriott Hotel on Thursday 22 October 2026, marking the sixth annual edition of the awards. It's an evening dedicated to the apprentices, employers, and training providers working across the region, with a good chunk of the night spent handing out trophies to people who've spent the year learning on the job.

There are 14 categories to get through, so it covers a lot of ground. On the apprentice side, there are awards for Intermediate, Advanced, Higher, and Degree levels, alongside sector-specific ones for Construction, Engineering and Manufacturing, Health and Public Service, Professional Services, and Technology and Digital. If you're on the other side of the training, there are categories for SME Employer, Large Employer, Apprentice Ambassador, Mentor, and Training Provider or Programme. It's a broad spread, from the people starting out to the organisations that set the whole thing up.

The awards have become a bit of a fixture over the last six years, and the focus is on the different stages of the apprenticeship journey — the apprentices building their careers and the employers investing in skills and long-term opportunities. It's as much about the people as the businesses, and the evening is as much about networking as it is about the trophies themselves.

One of the past winners, Hopscotch Day Nurseries, gives you a sense of how this works in practice: they've had apprenticeships as part of their workforce strategy for over 20 years, using the Hopscotch Academy to help people move from entry-level roles up into leadership. That's the kind of thing these awards are meant to highlight — the long-term side of it rather than just a quick qualification. The whole event is held at the Portsmouth Marriott Hotel on Thursday 22 October.