Owen Levels Up

Congratulations to Owen Deacon, one of our past apprentices with ITV Cymru Wales, for taking the next step in his career by securing a place on our Level 4 Apprenticeship in Advertising and Marketing with his new employer, IJPR Cymru.

IJPR have handled the publicity for such iconic programmes as Skins, Rev, Mad Dogs, The Missing, Wallander and The Voice UK. The current roster of programmes includes Call the Midwife, Cold Feet, Who Do You Think You Are, Lucky Man and the phenomenon The Crown. IJPR also manage the corporate publicity for several high-profile production companies. IJPR opened their Welsh office in Wolf Studios Wales in 2017. Since then they have worked across the first production filmed there, A Discovery of Witches, for Sky One. They are currently working across the BBC’s adaptation of His Dark Materials. With many more programmes in the pipeline and slated for production at the studios.

Owen chose to apply for an apprenticeship with IJPR Cymru after seeing the job advertised in Sgil Cymru’s apprenticeship newsletter. Owen said:

I chose to progress onto a level 4 apprenticeship from a level 3 because I felt it was the right step forward. I have been signed up to the Sgil Cymru newsletter for a while now and when I saw the IJPR Cymru apprenticeship in social media, I knew it was for me.

Whilst completing his apprenticeship with Sgil Cymru Owen will be working full-time over the next 15-months for IJPR Cymru as a Publicity and Social Media Assistant Apprentice.

Owen’s job varies and can range from prepping images for social media all the way up to assist in the running of social media pages for A Discovery of Witches, His Dark Materials, Screen Alliance Wales and Bad Wolf. Owen has spent time on set with the cast and crew, taking photos and shadowing other members of the publicity team.

With a year at ITV Cymru Wales under his belt, Owen is keen to use the next 15-months to build on his skills with the hope of staying in the PR and social media sector.

Owen said:

I feel that this level 4 apprenticeship will benefit my future in many ways. The fact that it is the equivalent to the first year of university is great because it means that I will have a respectable level of diploma without having thousands of pounds of debt, whilst having a lot of experience on the job. I also believe that exploring an area such as social media, which will only grow and become even bigger, could become an area that I specialise in, in the future.