JD Wetherspoon seeks to develop staff through effective and award-winning training and development, through a positive working environment and, of course, by means of a decent pay packet. Each and every year, thousands of our staff complete one or more training courses, not only preparing them to work safely and to the best of their ability, but also inspiring them to pursue positive career development.

In the field of training, we developed the Advanced Diploma in Leisure Retail Management, for pub and area managers, allowing all of our pub managers to gain a university qualification which sits just below degree level. It’s not all about degrees, though: we made a training commitment to our entire workforce, when we launched our food & drink apprenticeship scheme. This committed us to investing in the future of our 30,000 staff members, by becoming the first pub operator to sign up to the government’s Skills Pledge initiative.

The pledge is a voluntary, public commitment – made by an organisation – to invest in its workforce’s skills. In short, we aim to set the industry benchmarks and to be the best. Doing that depends on our people.