HR Apprentice – Build Your Career in HR with Dandara

Location: Milton Keynes
Programme: Structured HR Apprenticeship with Rotational Development

Start your HR career with real experience, real responsibility and a recognised qualification.

Are you ambitious, curious and looking for a career where you can work with people, solve problems and make a genuine impact on a business?

At Dandara, we’re offering an exciting opportunity to join our Group HR team as an HR Apprentice. You don't need previous HR experience – we're looking for someone with the potential, attitude and drive to build a successful long-term career in Human Resources.

This isn't an apprenticeship where you'll spend all your time doing basic administration. You'll follow a structured rotational development programme, gaining hands-on experience across the key areas of a modern HR function while working towards a recognised HR apprenticeship qualification.

You'll experience HR Operations, Recruitment & Resourcing, Learning & Development, Reward and HR Business Partnering, giving you the opportunity to discover where your strengths and interests could take you.

What you'll learn

HR Operations

You'll learn how HR supports employees throughout their career with Dandara, from joining the business through to promotions, contractual changes and eventually leaving.

You'll gain experience in:

• Offers, contracts and onboarding

• Employee records and HR systems

• Absence, family leave and probation

• HR reporting and people data

• HR policies and procedures

• Confidentiality, compliance and data protection

You'll quickly understand why accuracy and attention to detail really matter when you're dealing with people's careers and personal information.

Recruitment & Resourcing

Working alongside our Recruitment team, you'll see how we attract and hire talented people across Dandara.

You'll gain exposure to:

• Advertising vacancies and attracting candidates

• Our Teamtailor recruitment system

• Candidate screening and selection

• Interviews and assessment

• Recruitment campaigns

• Candidate experience

• Recruitment data and reporting

• Understanding recruitment costs and agency spend

As your confidence and capability develop, you'll have opportunities to become more actively involved in interviews and recruitment activities.

Learning & Development

You'll see how Dandara develops its people and prepares future leaders.

You'll gain experience of:

• Coordinating training and development

• Leadership development

• Early careers programmes

• Career pathways

• Succession and talent planning

• Our Kallidus learning platform

• Measuring the effectiveness of learning

You'll learn how developing people's skills can directly improve business performance.

HR Business Partnering

As you progress through the programme, you'll gain exposure to the more advisory and commercial side of HR.

You'll shadow experienced HR professionals and learn about:

• Employee relations

• Performance and attendance

• Organisational change

• Workforce planning

• Employment policies and principles

• Advising and supporting managers

• Using judgement to solve people-related problems

You'll also gain exposure to Reward, Benefits and Payroll, helping you understand how the different elements of HR fit together.

What we're looking for

We're not looking for someone who already knows everything about HR. We'll teach you that.

We're looking for someone with the potential to learn quickly and the ambition to make something of the opportunity.

You'll ideally be:

• Genuinely interested in developing a professional career in HR

• Ambitious, motivated and keen to progress

• Curious – someone who wants to understand why, not just what

• Confident enough to ask questions and contribute ideas

• Resilient and able to learn from feedback and mistakes

• Highly organised with excellent attention to detail

• A strong written and verbal communicator

• Comfortable working with numbers, data and technology

• Professional and trustworthy with confidential information

• Adaptable and comfortable working with different people and teams

You'll also need to understand that building a successful career means mastering the fundamentals. Some of your work will be administrative, particularly at the beginning, and we'll expect you to approach those responsibilities with the same enthusiasm and professionalism as the more exciting projects.

No previous HR experience is required. Potential, attitude and capability matter more to us than previous exposure to HR.

Qualifications

We're looking for a strong general standard of education and evidence of your ability to learn and develop.

You'll have:

• GCSEs at Grade 6 or above, including English, Maths & Business Studies

• Level 3/post-16 qualifications are desirable

• Previous work experience, whether part-time, full-time, voluntary or through work placements, would also be beneficial

Where could this take you?

Our aim is to develop someone who can build a long-term career within HR.

Throughout your apprenticeship, you'll receive practical experience, structured development, feedback and increasing responsibility as your capability grows.

By the end of the programme, you'll have gained experience across several different HR specialisms and completed a recognised HR apprenticeship qualification.

Depending on your performance, strengths, interests and future opportunities within Dandara, your career could ultimately develop into areas such as:

HR Operations | Recruitment & Resourcing | Learning & Development | Reward | HR Business Partnering

Progression isn't automatic – you'll need to earn it through your performance, development and commitment. But for someone with the right attitude and ambition, this apprenticeship provides an excellent platform from which to build a professional HR career.

What's in it for you?

• £24,785 basic salary

• Bonus Scheme

• Training in HR

• 33 days holiday (inclusive of bank holidays)

• Private Medical Insurance

• Employee Assistance Programme - EAP

• Health Hero digital doctor - 24 hr virtual help and appointments

• Health Assured Wisdom App

• 3x salary life assurance (paid option to increase to x4)

• Cycle to Work Scheme

• Employer matched pension scheme of up to 5%

• Flexible benefits including shopping vouchers, airport parking and reduced gym membership

No Agencies please.