Driving 150% learner growth and quality at scale: The Hays Travel story

As apprenticeship programmes grow, maintaining consistent quality, compliance, and oversight becomes increasingly important. With Hays Travel’s provision expanding, the team identified an opportunity to further strengthen how delivery was managed. 

By moving delivery into Bud, Hays Travel replaced separate systems with a single joined-up platform, giving teams clearer visibility into learner progress, stronger control over key quality measures, and a more efficient operating model.

Partnering with Bud has led to stronger reporting, improved learner review performance, reduced compliance pressure, and a delivery model that better supports growth across multiple sites and teams. 

A market-leading employer investing in talent

Established in 1980, Hays Travel is the UK’s largest independent travel agent and has been an apprenticeship employer provider for most of its history.

Hays Travel employs over 4,500 people across its retail network, call centre and head office operations. As well as its Hays Travel branches, the wider retail network includes Miles Morgan Travel, Spear Travels, Travel House, Polka Dot Travel, Millington Travel, and the Holiday and Flights Centre shops. Hays Travel also has a network of over 700 personal travel consultants working at home, and a consortium of Independence Group members.

Hays Travel is recognised for its customer-first approach, its long-standing investment in learning and development, and commitment to supporting the communities where it operates.

Apprenticeships play an important role in building capability across the business, supporting talent development through structured training, workplace support, and clear progression pathways for hundreds of apprentices each year.

Hays Travel delivers the Level 2 Customer Service Practitioner and Level 3 Travel Consultant apprenticeships, helping frontline teams across its national network build skills and confidence in role.

Since 2012, Hays Travel has consistently achieved ‘Good’ across four Ofsted inspections, reflecting the strength of its provision and commitment to continuous improvement. 

Strengthening delivery as provision expands

Hays Travel expanded its apprenticeship provision through acquisitions, new branch openings, and a structured approach to placing apprentices across its national network.

Apprenticeship placements have increased to almost 700 nationwide, with Hays Travel processing approximately 2,000 applications this year.

In response to increased scale and complexity, key priorities for Hays Travel’s apprenticeship team now include ensuring consistent systems, having clear data visibility, and effective quality oversight.

To support continued growth, Hays Travel identified a few areas where further enhancement would support consistency, visibility, and scale: 

• The need for clearer, joined-up visibility of learner progress

• A focus on consistent quality and performance monitoring

• More reliable access to accurate, up-to-date data for reporting and decision-making

• A stronger, more proactive approach to learner reviews

• More streamlined processes to support efficient scale
  

One platform for complete control

In December 2022, Hays Travel selected Bud after reviewing alternative platforms, with the goal of bringing apprenticeship delivery into a single system and moving away from fragmented processes that limited visibility and control. Having previously relied on a legacy platform alongside manual processes, the team was seeking a more connected and scalable solution.

Bud stood out thanks to its strong product fit, built-in compliance workflows, and flexible approach, allowing Hays to retain control over programme design without added complexity. Just as importantly, the supportive, low-pressure buying experience gave the team confidence they had found a long-term partner.

The aim was to establish a simpler, more connected delivery model that would support learner growth, improve reporting accuracy, and provide stronger day-to-day oversight of programme performance.

To make that possible, Hays Travel needed: 

• One central platform for learner management, reporting, and operational oversight across multiple sites

• A smooth implementation that supported the move away from legacy systems

• Migration of learners into a more connected and scalable delivery environment

• Better visibility of learner progress, review activity, and quality performance

• A stronger foundation for efficiency, growth, and long-term return on investment
  

Stronger performance across the board

The impact of the move to Bud has been measurable and driven by improvements in how learner performance, reviews, and compliance are managed day-to-day.

With Bud’s Learner Insights and reporting, Hays Travel now has a clear, real-time view of learner progress, allowing teams to identify issues earlier and track performance more consistently across locations. Structured review workflows, including the ability for learners to contribute ahead of scheduled reviews, have created a more consistent and better-prepared review process, with signatures from all parties captured on time.

Greater visibility of Off-the-Job (OTJ) progress, alongside built-in compliance tools such as missing signature and compliance reporting, has made it easier to monitor learner activity, prioritise actions, and maintain audit readiness.

Together, these changes have strengthened oversight, improved the quality and timeliness of learner reviews, and provided greater confidence in compliance, while enabling Hays Travel to scale delivery.

• Learner reviews are progressing as planned, driven by structured review workflows, advance learner contributions, and timely capture of signatures from all parties, giving the team far stronger control over learner progress and review timeliness.

• 99.5% of learners are on track with off-the-job learning, supported by improved OTJ tracking and clearer progress monitoring, strengthening stronger learner engagement and programme delivery.

• 100% of learners are on track with their activity progress, enabled by clearer visibility of learner activity, giving teams earlier opportunities to intervene and provide support where needed.

• Learner numbers increased by 150% across all of Hays Travel’s sites, demonstrating that Hays Travel has been able to scale delivery more effectively whilst maintaining quality.

• 50% of learners achieve a distinction (vs 37-39% nationally), underlining strong learner outcomes alongside operational improvement, with particularly strong Level 2 Customer Service Practitioner results, where 91% of Hays Travel’s apprentices achieved distinction in 2026.

• 0 ILR submission errors using Bud’s ILR Compliance Reporting, helping teams identify and resolve issues ahead of deadline periods.

On the impact of Bud

The results that matter

Built for scalable, sustainable growth

Hays Travel’s story shows what is possible when apprenticeship delivery is underpinned by a more connected, insight-led solution. By replacing disconnected systems with Bud, the team has improved visibility, strengthened quality processes, and built a more scalable model for growth.

For group organisations operating across multiple sites, this kind of joined-up platform is especially valuable, helping teams maintain consistency, strengthen oversight, and uphold quality standards across every location. With stronger oversight, better reporting, and clearer proof of performance, Hays Travel is in a stronger position to support learners and maintain quality as their business and apprenticeship delivery evolve.