My interest in Apprenticeships began in 1995 when I was working in employment services in Western Australia. Spotting a lack of opportunities for people with disabilities to enter vocational training from school I became heavily involved setting up pilot apprenticeship projects with large private companies and within local and federal government. These initiatives caught the public eye at the time and the program evolved into a 16+ career training and support service that secured school work experiences, traineeships, apprenticeships and higher vocational/educational support. When I left Australia in 2014 the program had directly secured over 11,000 training and employment opportunities for people with disabilities. I have continued my interest in the vocational sector here in the UK and have worked for Shaw Trust on their Study Programme and traineeship projects for disadvantaged young people not in education or training before returning to the apprentice sector in 2016 with Semta Apprenticeship Services as a quality and compliance officer. An internal move in 2018 led me into the fledgling End Point Assessment team to help set up and then grow this service for the EAL awarding organisation. I was in this role as the manager of End Point Assessment and Compliance for 6 years before moving over to IMechE's End Point Assessment (EPA) team in November 2024. In my role of Operations Manager for End Point Assessment I am responsible for managing the day-to-day operations of EPA which includes leading the EPA coordination team, looking after the financial processes and customer relations and making sure all of IMechE’s EPA activities are compliant with our regulating body Ofqual).