Entrepreneurship has long been recognised as a vital driver of economic growth, innovation, and job creation. Yet, one of the challenges in building an entrepreneurial nation is ensuring that entrepreneurs are not just inspired, but also supported with structured learning pathways that help them to grow sustainable ventures. This is where the UK’s National Occupational Standards (NOS) for enterprise provide a valuable foundation.
Although originally developed nearly a decade ago, these NOS documents remain highly relevant today. They set out the core skills and behaviours entrepreneurs need – from scanning the business environment for opportunities, to engaging customers, managing ventures, and sustaining networks.
By mapping these NOS to the three proposed entrepreneurial apprenticeships – Level 4 (Starting a Business), Level 6 (Growing a Business), and Level 7 (Scaling a Business) – we can translate a set of legacy standards into a modern, practical framework for entrepreneurial development. This approach ensures that apprenticeship pathways are not only aligned with employer and learner needs, but also embedded in a recognised skills infrastructure that government and industry can support.
In this blog, I’ll show how each NOS element fits naturally into the journey of an entrepreneur, and how this mapping creates a clear, progressive route from startup through to scaleup success.
Here’s a draft mapping of the NOS titles to the stages of entrepreneurial apprenticeship:
Level 3 – Starting a Business (Foundation / early-stage venture skills)
Focus: discovery, opportunity recognition, validation, and establishing a viable startup.
- Scan the business environment for enterprise opportunities (CFAENTI&TA1)
- Make sense of enterprise opportunities and their compatibility with organisational priorities (CFAENTI&TA2)
- Identify stakeholders for an enterprise venture and evaluate their needs (CFAENTI&TA4)
- Develop a vision and goals for an enterprise venture (CFAENTI&TA5)
- Identify customers and how to engage them in an enterprise venture (CFAENTP&DB2)
Level 5 – Growing a Business (Building operations, managing growth, developing resilience)
Focus: customer traction, managing operations, proving business models, and developing organisational capacity.
- Manage an enterprise venture (CFAENTP&DB4)
- Plan to deal with uncertainties, ambiguities and contingencies relating to an enterprise venture (CFAENTP&DB1)
- Review and sustain networks to support an enterprise venture (CFAENTP&DB5)
- Demonstrate the difference created by an enterprise venture (CFAENTM&RC2)
Level 6 – Scaling a Business (Strategic leadership, productivity, and impact)
Focus: innovation, impact measurement, leadership, and preparing for independence or exit.
- Monitor and evaluate the difference created by an enterprise venture (CFAENTM&RC3)
- Demonstrate the difference created by an enterprise venture (CFAENTM&RC2) (relevant here too at a deeper, strategic level)
- Plan to deal with uncertainties, ambiguities and contingencies (applies at scaling stage in terms of strategic risk and resilience)
Read more about the Apprenticeship for Entrepreneurs.