Famous Faces You Probably Didn’t Know Started With An Apprenticeship

National Apprenticeship Week is now upon us, and it’s the perfect time to celebrate the amazing opportunities and many pathways the qualifications can open up to young people looking to start out in various sectors. 

The number of people taking part in apprenticeships has been on the rise over the last few years, with the latest Gov.uk figures showing that over 760,000 people are currently undertaking some form of apprenticeship. 

To celebrate all things apprenticeships, we’ve picked out the top five celebrities that you might not have known did an apprenticeship before rising to fame…

Gordon Ramsey

The renowned TV chef started out as an apprentice under the stewardship of another famous culinary perfectionist, Marco Pierre White, back in the mid 1980s, after a knee injury wrecked his potential football career. 

After spending nearly three years learning his trade under the former Hell’s Kitchen presenter, Ramsay moved to Paris to continue his culinary education, going against the advice of Pierre White before returning to London and ultimately establishing his restaurant empire. 

George Clarke

Well known for his hit shows such as George Clarke’s Amazing Spaces and The Restoration Man, the Sunderland-born TV personality began his career with an architectural apprenticeship in his hometown, which included real project work alongside BTEC studies. 

Despite his huge success since, Clarke has not shied away from how important his apprenticeship was, saying back in 2018, that it was “the foundation for everything that happened since.” 

Sir Billy Connelly

The iconic Scottish comedian spent a five-year stint as a welding apprentice in the shipyards of Glasgow after leaving school at 15. 

Although the practical skills Connolly learned during this time weren’t needed for his career in comedy, the 83-year-old credits his formative experience for shaping him and providing him with much-needed stand-up material when he left to pursue the profession full-time in his early twenties.

Stella McCartney

Stella McCartney started her career in fashion design from the ground up after spending several years as an apprentice for Edward Sexton (taking advantage of the fact that he was her father’s Savile Row tailor) and interned with the renowned French fashion designer, Christian Lacroix.

She has said that these early experiences with top industry professionals allowed her to learn the basic skills necessary to become the household industry name she is today.

Baroness Karren Brady CBE

Before stepping into the world of football (and later, reality TV), Karren Brady started her career as an apprentice at the renowned advertising agency, Saatchi & Saatchi, at just 18 years old, deciding not to go to university, despite excelling in school.

Her talent was quickly recognised by newspaper boss David Sullivan (her former boss), and by the time she was 23 years old, she had been made the Managing Director of Birmingham City FC – becoming the youngest ever woman to direct a Premier League football club.

Celebrities you didn’t know had jobs in logistics…

Liam Neeson

The Northern Irish actor worked as a forklift driver for Guinness in his hometown of Ballymena, leaving a physics and computer science degree at Queen’s University in Belfast to do so. In a recent interview, he joked that it was “the best job he’s ever had”, fondly recalling his time with the brewery and citing a pivotal conversation with a colleague, which helped persuade him to pursue a career in acting.

Jennifer Anniston

Before she gained global fame, the Friends actress had a very brief stint as a bike messenger in New York. She explained she fell into the role while doing odd jobs for the advertising agency her mother worked at after she left school. One day, the bike messenger failed to turn up, leaving her to take on the role. Despite it being for just a single day, Aniston described it as “the toughest job” of her life because she is “very uncoordinated and extraordinarily clumsy”.

James Cameron

After dropping out of college in the mid 70s, the now world-famous film director took a job driving trucks. He quit a few years later, though, after seeing Star Wars, to educate himself on special effects in films – eventually leading to him creating classics such as The Terminator, Titanic and Avatar.

Steve Carell

Long before he starred in the likes of Anchorman and The Office, Steve Carell was a USPS mail carrier in the mid 1980s. He didn’t last long in the role, however, quitting after seven months following his boss telling him he was “not very good at the job” and needed to be faster.