Course overview
This work-based programme is designed to provide the essential knowledge, understanding and skills required to operate effectively and successfully in a sales role.
To join the course, the apprentice will need to be employed for a minimum of 30 hours per week in a relevant role and have the support of their employer.
About this course
This apprenticeship is suitable for anyone that wishes to pursue a career in business-to-business (B2B) sales, or to those already in sales roles who are ready to develop their skills further, such as:
- Account managers
- Business development managers
- Sales specialists
It will allow apprentices to combine work-based learning opportunities with academic knowledge gained through formal workshops and projects relevant to the organisation where they work.
The Business-to-Business Sales Degree Apprenticeship is:
- Designed by industry professionals
- Suitable as a way to upskill existing members of staff or as a pathway for new employees
- Delivered in small groups with specially designed learning sessions ensuring that apprentices get the most out of their time in workshops and lectures
- Required to include a minimum of six hours a week off-the-job learning
- Funded through the Apprenticeship Levy - no fees are paid by the apprentice
Successful apprentices will gain a BSc (Hons) Professional Practice in Business-to-Business Sales degree, while also having the opportunity to become accredited by the Institute of Sales Professionals, at the stage of applying for professional accreditation, professional membership fees will apply, however, during the duration of the apprenticeship your membership fees for the Institute of Sales Professionals will be covered by Leeds Trinity University.
Programme duration and delivery
It will typically take three years to complete the apprenticeship, however, there may also be opportunities to join part-way through the programme if candidates have considerable experience in a particular area.
Apprentices will receive all the benefits of being a student at Leeds Trinity University, while also earning a full-time salary from their employer.
This apprenticeship is delivered through a blended learning approach. Apprentices benefit from face-to-face and online lectures and seminars, delivered by Leeds Trinity University. In addition to this, apprentices will also complete independent research activities which can be undertaken in the workplace.
Note: This course will only run if minimum student numbers are met.
Course modules
You will study a variety of modules across your programme of study. The module details given below are subject to change and are the latest example of the curriculum available on this course of study.
Year 1
During the first year, the apprentice will study four core modules.
Introduction to your Professional Degree Apprenticeship - Core
This module equips apprentices with essential study skills for navigating higher education and fosters reflective practice by introducing key models and theories. Learners will engage with academic conventions such as writing, note-taking, literature searching, presentation skills, and referencing.
The module emphasizes building a Portfolio of Evidence, guiding apprentices to map their workplace activities to the knowledge, skills, and behaviours (KSBs) outlined in their apprenticeship standard.
Additionally, apprentices will develop a Negotiated Learning Plan that aligns with both personal and professional development needs, benefiting their employer while meeting academic standards.
Negotiated Learning: Developing Business-to-Business Sales Practice - Core
You will explore essential aspects of sales and business development subject areas, including prospecting, sales planning, solution development, and proposal development.
You'll also gain skills in commercial acumen, post-sales delivery, applied insights, teamwork, pitching, negotiation, and digital business leverage.
This module offers you a comprehensive foundation in business-to-business sales and professional development.
Negotiated Learning: Introduction to Digital Business and Social Selling - Core
In this module, apprentices will learn more about the social selling strategies that they can leverage in a digital commercial world. This includes specific technologies, scalable strategies to aid in lead generation, digital-first customer engagement, and more.
Apprentices will learn how to develop digital networks, leverage those networks, and drive insight-led engagement, while also learning to articulate the value in these actions.
Negotiated Learning: Projects in the Workplace - Core
Sharpen your awareness of small-scale work-based project stages and processes in this module.
You'll cover work-based project types, ethical data use, project design, stakeholder communication, and more.
You and your tutor will customise your aims and objectives in the Learning Agreement to align with your unique projects and professional context.
Year 2
During the second year, the apprentice will study five core modules.
Apprenticeship Portfolio Review - Core
This module supports apprentices in reflecting on their professional experiences, identifying valuable insights from both formal education and workplace learning.
Apprentices will explore methods to analyse and evaluate their work-based knowledge, developing skills in presenting their learning achievements clearly and coherently. The module emphasises the connection between personal learning outcomes and professional growth, encouraging apprentices to map their experiences to their apprenticeship standards.
Apprentices will also take ownership of planning a coherent learning programme that aligns with their academic goals and job responsibilities, ensuring continuous development throughout their apprenticeship.
Negotiated Learning: Commercial Acumen in B2B Sales - Core
This module will place a focus on developing commercial and sales acumen.
Apprentices will learn to create innovative solutions that deliver business value, contribute to commercial strategies using financial principles, and assess risks and opportunities within the competitive landscape.
Through practical application, they will also interpret and apply market insights from both digital and traditional sources, evidencing key knowledge, skills, and behaviors required in professional B2B sales roles.
Negotiated Learning: Consultative Selling - Core
This module focuses on key areas such as consultative selling, pitching, sales psychology, negotiation, and closing techniques.
Apprentices will develop a sales pitch and proposal for a specific customer, demonstrating their understanding of customer psychology, relationship-building, strategic solution-selling, and negotiation.
Through practical application, apprentices will evidence key skills such as adapting sales approaches, leading effective pitches, handling objections, and closing deals to deliver mutual value for both customer and supplier.
Negotiated Learning: The Customer Journey - Core
This module focuses on the customer journey, emphasizing customer experience, value, and expectations, and how these inform effective sales strategies to drive customer retention.
Apprentices will explore key concepts such as post-sales delivery, managing expectations, and aligning teams to meet customer needs, while critically reflecting on the psychological and emotional aspects of sales relationships.
Through practical application, apprentices will demonstrate skills in customer advocacy, ethical sales practices, and continuous improvement, ensuring alignment between company performance and customer satisfaction.
Level 5 Work-based Project
This module enables apprentices to choose the most appropriate assessment method for their project, with guidance from the module tutor. Learners can select from multiple options, tailoring their submission to the nature of their project.
One option involves submitting a full report detailing the project's planning, implementation, and outcomes. Alternatively, apprentices who produce a report (such as a strategic plan or new process) can submit this alongside a shorter report analyzing key stages. Another option combines a written report with a professional discussion, which are assessed together for a final grade.
In addition, apprentices will present a project evaluation, reflecting on its success and how it demonstrated their competence in key knowledge, skills, and behaviours (KSBs).
Year 3
In the final year, the apprentice will complete three modules.
Advancing Your Portfolio Towards End Point Assessment - Core
This module guides apprentices in consolidating learning and workplace experiences, introducing them to Gateway and End Point Assessment requirements.
Through reflection and gap analysis, apprentices build a project proposal, aligning outcomes with occupational standards, and ensuring comprehensive coverage.
Emphasising learning articulation, progression reflection, and project proposal creation, this module prepares apprentices for the Work-Based Project module.
Negotiated Learning: Strategic and Ethical Sales Practice - Core
This module focuses on strategic and ethical sales practices within the Business to Business Sales Professional Degree Apprenticeship Standard at Level 6.
Apprentices will develop skills in sales planning, including strategic prospecting and pipeline management, while defining customer requirements in industry-specific terms.
They will also learn to create innovative solutions that provide tangible benefits, contribute to commercial strategies, and foster ethical behaviors that promote trust and integrity in sales relationships.
Gateway Preparation Module - Core
This module is designed to guide apprentices through the final stages of their apprenticeship, preparing them for the End-Point Assessment (EPA). Apprentices will review and consolidate the knowledge, skills, and behaviours (KSBs) acquired throughout the programme, aligning them with the requirements of their apprenticeship standard.
End Point Assessment
In this module, apprentices will collaborate with their employer, university, and mentor to complete their End Point Assessment.
Learning and Teaching
At Leeds Trinity we aim to provide an excellent student experience and provide you with the tools and support to help you achieve your academic, personal and professional potential.
Our Learning, Teaching and Assessment Strategy delivers excellence by providing the framework for:
- high quality teaching
- an engaging and inclusive approach to learning, assessment and achievement
- a clear structure through which you progress in your academic studies, your personal development and towards professional-level employment or further study.
We have a strong reputation for developing student employability, supporting your development towards graduate employment, with relevant skills embedded throughout your programme of study.
We endeavour to develop curiosity, confidence, courage, ambition and aspiration in all students through the key themes in our Learning and Teaching Strategy:
- Student Involvement and Engagement
- Inclusion
- Integrated Programme and Assessment Experience
- Digital Literacy and Skills
- Employability and Enterprise
To help you achieve your potential we emphasise learning as a collaborative process, with a range of student-led and real-world activities. This approach ensures that you fully engage in shaping your own learning, developing your critical thinking and reflective skills so that you can identify your own strengths and weaknesses, and use the extensive learning support system we offer to shape your own development.
We believe the secret to great learning and teaching is simple: it is about creating an inclusive learning experience that allows all students to thrive through:
- Personalised support
- Expert lecturers
- Strong connections with employers
- An international outlook
- Understanding how to use tools and technology to support learning and development
Assessment
Throughout the programme, apprentices are assessed via various methods including:
- reports
- presentations
- professional discussions
- assignments
- work-based projects
- sales pitches
Apprentices will also create a portfolio of evidence throughout the programme to allow them to demonstrate how they have achieved the knowledge, skills and behaviours set out in the Apprenticeship Standard. Evidence may include reports, reflective logs, formative assessments and learning journals.
Upon completion of the degree, each apprentice will undertake the End Point Assessment. The End Point Assessment will consist of a work-based project report and presentation, a portfolio of evidence mapped to the Apprenticeship Standard KSBs and a competency-based interview. This has been designed to enable the apprenticeship to be completed in accordance with the Degree Apprenticeship Standard. An independent assessor will assess this.
The End Point Assessment will consist of a work-based project, a presentation, panel interview and a sales pitch.
This will be assessed by an independent assessor.
About Negotiated Learning:
All apprentices will work with their employer to agree on the central theme of their work-based learning for Negotiated Learning modules. These themes will be based on the Degree Apprenticeship Standard. Apprentices, Employers, and Mentors will come together and agree upon the preferred Knowledge, Skills and Behaviours (KSBs) that the apprentice will focus on during each module.
Entry Requirements
Leeds Trinity University is committed to recruiting students with talent and potential and who we feel will benefit greatly from their academic and non-academic experiences here. We treat every application on its own merits.
The following information is designed to give you a general overview of the qualifications we accept. If you are taking qualifications that are not included below, please contact our Apprenticeship Student Admin team who will be happy to advise you.
Applicants must:
- Must hold a level 2 qualification in English Language and Maths Grade 4/C or above
- Provide evidence of the highest achieved qualifications
- Be employed for a minimum of 30 hours per week in a relevant role and have the support of their employer
- Live and have the right to work in England (ID will be requested)
Once a completed evidence pack is received applicants will undertake an initial assessment interview and skills scan with the programme lead to establish their suitability for the apprenticeship
Support
We offer extensive support to all of our apprentices - whatever your background or academic experience.
This includes access to our Peer Support Champions and the Learning Hub, which offers tailored support for academic skills.
Fees and finance
Costs of programme
The cost of the full degree apprenticeship programme is £21,000.
Funding
Degree Apprenticeships are fully funded by your employer if their wage bill is over £3 million each year.
The government will fund up to 95% of the apprenticeship’s course fees, up to the relevant funding band, if the organisation has spent all its levy or has an annual wage bill below £3 million each year. Employers who do not pay the apprenticeship levy contribute 5% towards the total cost of the apprenticeship, the ESFA will contribute the other 95% directly to the University. Employers must have an account with the Apprenticeship Service Account to be able to reserve Government funding for an apprenticeship. This reservation ensures that funds will be available to pay for the training from the point the apprenticeship starts.
Read more about how levy payments work at the UK Government website.
How to apply
Whether you’re looking to develop your skills with us as an apprentice, or you’re an employer looking for more information on using Leeds Trinity University as a training provider, please complete the form below and we will contact you to discuss your options.
About Leeds Trinity University
Our professional Apprenticeships combine part-time study at Leeds Trinity University with workplace training. We've been providing outstanding provision in higher education for over 50 years and have significant experience of delivering work-based learning programmes. We're proud to offer a personal and inclusive university experience that gives everyone the support they need to realise their potential. Our teaching staff have extensive and relevant professional experience.
Helen ClintonThe apprenticeship has offered me a more holistic, well-rounded view of business, helping me to progress my role, to change things and to make a difference at work. The degree helped me look at business strategy differently and stand out in the team.
Senior National Account Manager at Portmeirion Group, and Business-to-Business Sales Degree Apprenticeship graduate.
Julie TwiggOver the past two years, we’ve seen Helen flourish in her role. We’ve been focusing on taking the learning and theory she got from the course and applying it to the business. She keeps getting better and better. From a learning and development perspective, it is so important for employers to see it as a two-way relationship and commit to making the most of that opportunity. Helen is proof that it works, and she is reaping the rewards now.
UK Learning and Development Manager at Portmeirion Group