Coins are self-contained, atomic goals that provide evidence towards one or more apprenticeship Duties. Each coin stands on its own — there are no sub-milestones to work through, and no coin depends on a specific scheduled event (training day, cohort activity, etc.). If a coin references a technique or tool, any suitable real example from your own project work counts as evidence.
Coins are a menu for variety and stretch, not a checklist for EPA sign-off. Full KSB coverage is expected to emerge from the sum of your day-to-day work and reflection over the apprenticeship — most of which will never become a coin. We map coins to Duties/KSBs so you can see what kind of skill each one builds, and so your mentors can point you at a specific coin if they spot a KSB that isn't otherwise showing up in your evidence. That's the tags' only job.
Coins are grouped into 10 themes, each mapping to a cluster of related Duties. You are not expected to complete every coin. As a guideline, aim for at least 1-2 coins per theme over the course of your apprenticeship, choosing the ones most relevant to your project and interests. Coins marked (advanced) are a deliberate step up in one of two ways: some build on top of a base skill into more confidently intermediate technical territory (you'll usually have done a base coin in that theme, or have equivalent experience); others call for interpersonal or mentoring skills — the kind of stretch that's less about theme familiarity and more about confidence working with and through other people. Either way, they're optional deeper dives, not a requirement!
Each coin lists:
- Duties it evidences (D1-D13, per the apprenticeship standard)
- KSBs it evidences (Knowledge, Skill, and Behaviour references)
- Evidence — what you need to produce or demonstrate to claim the coin
Every coin's primary evidence is an artefact — a pipeline, a diagram, a test suite, a tuned alert, a retro output, a mentee's written reflection. This should stand on its own; you don't need a witness sign-off to claim most coins.
Separately, your apprenticeship also requires 3 formal Employer Witness Testimonies across the whole programme, each completed by a senior delivery stakeholder and covering two dated, real examples of you demonstrating competency.
These 3 testimonies aren't tied to individual coins — each one should map holistically across whichever coins/duties the observed examples naturally cover, per the standard's own guidance ("one example could cover criteria from multiple modules across the standard"). In practice:
- Most coins only ever need the artefact — no witness required.
- Aim to line up your 3 testimonies with moments that naturally span several coins at once, especially ones evidencing interpersonal/cultural duties (D2, D3, D4, D13), where a stakeholder's outside perspective adds something the artefact alone can't.
- Space the 3 testimonies out across the apprenticeship (e.g. roughly one every 2-3 months, after you've finished bootcamp and joined a delivery) rather than leaving them all to the end — talk to your point of contact/people manager about timing.
See witness-testimony-template.md in this directory for the testimony format itself.