A postgraduate degree apprenticeship and a passion for sustainability
Posted on: 7 April, 2025
“I think a postgraduate apprenticeship is a great way to learn because you’ve gained experience at undergraduate level and you’ve been able to learn about a topic that interests you, but then to be able to take that further, learn more, and apply it to your work is a great opportunity.”
Name: Katie Roberts
Company: JLL
Katie Roberts is in her final year of the real estate Master’s degree apprenticeship at UCEM. Her undergraduate degree is in Geography, which Katie says “always fascinated me in terms of places and people and how they interact, and how we can shape better cities and places for people to live.”
After graduating, Katie applied to lots of different jobs in the property sector, eventually securing a place on JLL’s graduate scheme where she was offered the opportunity to enrol on the real estate Master’s. This is something JLL offers to its graduates “to gain experience alongside learning and then be able to apply that learning at the same time”.
Katie was pleased to be offered the opportunity of postgraduate study:
“I think a postgraduate apprenticeship is a great way to learn because you’ve gained experience at undergraduate level and you’ve been able to learn about a topic that interests you, but then to be able to take that further, learn more, and apply it to your work is a great opportunity.”
Early exposure to the built environment
Making school pupils aware of roles and opportunities in the built environment is a well-known challenge. However, when Katie was at school, she was fortunate enough to take part in a programme called Regeneration Brainery which runs bootcamps to introduce young people to careers in property. Katie credits this programme with sparking her interest in the sector, and she is now an ambassador for them:
“They run week-long programs and try to get people involved in projects, go out on site, and hear from loads of different careers across the sector. There are so many careers that you’d never have heard of within the built environment. I think it’s something like 10% of the UK workforce are employed in some regard in the built environment.
“I think making sure that people are aware that there are these opportunities is so important, particularly from a social mobility perspective. Because if people are only learning about the careers available through family and friends, then that’s massively closing off a whole proportion of society.”
Peer support and study support
Katie is part of a cohort Master’s degree apprentices at JLL, which she appreciates because “there are a lot of us in the same boat and it’s good to be able to support each other. We try to motivate each other.”
Balancing an apprenticeship with a role is not easy, but Katie finds the structure of both the course and her work schedule helps make it manageable:
“We’re well supported through having study leave. I take Fridays as study days, for instance. So it’s good to know that that’s a consistent, blocked-out time to be able to study, and then we have check-in meetings every six weeks with our apprenticeship outcomes officer. You can make sure that you’re on track and that things are going well with your modules.
“And then in terms of actual content, we normally have two modules at any one time and then there are weekly lectures but they’re all recorded so it can fit into your work or you can watch it on your allocated days. We have online forums where you can check-in and ask questions. I think it’s quite well structured in terms of working your way through the activities and watching the lectures. I haven’t really needed to reach out for help beyond that.”
The net zero conundrum
Katie works in the sustainability team at JLL, in their London office, and aspires to hold a role after her apprenticeship that focuses on ESG in real estate.
She has observed that many commercial occupier tenants have committed to ambitious climate targets – in particular, net zero targets for 2030 – and are now facing the challenge of retrofitting their office spaces to help meet those targets:
“There’s not enough Grade A office space that meets the needs of all these companies who have signed up to net zero 2030 targets. A lot of companies perhaps aren’t thinking quite as strategically as they should be about this because if they signed these targets and have committed to that, but they’re signing 10-year leases now into buildings that are never going to meet those criteria, then they’re going to have a big offsetting bill very shortly.”
Katie foresees climate resilience moving higher up the agendas of many companies, even if they don’t have specific net zero targets or extra budget:
“Climate resilience is becoming massively important because it’s all very well having a new shiny building, but if that’s not going to be resilient to climate change, flooding, heat stress, then you could be wasting resources. There’s demand for smaller space but with stronger ESG credentials. So companies seem to have the same budget for space, but they’re just using that on smaller but more prime spaces.”
