The Sun has today began its search to hire three budding journalist apprentices to work full-time on the paper.

The Sun is looking for young talent with passion, drive, desire and motivation to be part of the Britain’s best selling newspaper.

The paper believes that what matters is talent, not background, and are particularly keen to find apprentices who do not have a degree, but graduates are welcome to apply.

During their 12-month apprenticeship the candidates will be mentored by senior Sun journalists, get on-the-job training, whilst training for a News Associates full-time, fast-track, multimedia journalism NCTJ diploma.

One apprentice will work on the news desk and two others will work on sport.

The successful applicants could follow in the footsteps of Lucy Jones, who went on the same training scheme our apprentices will attend and now she is a Sun TV reporter.

Since landing a job on Dan Wooton’s TV Bizarre, Lucy has interviewed top stars from Tom Hiddleston to Prince Harry and last week Lucy spent the night in a haunted hotel with TV presenter Christine Lampard. And Sam Morgan, who came through The Sun Sport trainee scheme and was last month in Minnesota, playing the Hazeltine Ryder Cup course with former US PGA winner Rich Beem.

The scheme is being run in partnership with News UK’s News Academy which launched in 2013 to invest in the future of journalism. The News Academy has reached over 8,000 students in the UK and provides masterclasses, summer schools, internships and work-experience programmes. The best News Academy graduates have already been hired across News UK titles.

Tony Gallagher, Editor-in-Chief of The Sun said:

The Sun Apprentice scheme is an unrivalled opportunity for three young journalists at the start of their careers to join our world class sport and news desks. We're looking for applicants with an eye for good stories and the drive to go out and find them. The successful trio will get a grounding at Britain’s best selling newspaper and come out of the scheme as fully trained journalists.”

News UK CEO, Rebekah Brooks said:

The Sun’s Apprenticeship scheme shows News UK’s commitment to investing in journalism, from the content of today to the news gatherers of tomorrow. I look forward to meeting The Sun’s apprentices and following their progress throughout the scheme.”

The application deadline is Monday 5 December 2016.

Applications for the apprenticeship scheme are invited from candidates who have 5 GCSEs or equivalent, grade C or above, or equivalent and will be paid above the London Living Wage.  The positions are open to those who do not already have an advanced apprenticeship and/or degree level qualification.

Candidates can apply now via The Sun website here, and keep up-to-date with the latest developments on twitter following the hashtag #SunApprentice.