Tag: Apprenticeships

Level 7 Apprenticeships: Babies and Bathwater

Last September, the Prime Minister announced a “rebalancing” of funding from the apprenticeship levy (shortly to become the Growth and Skills Levy). Employers’ ability to use the funds for postgraduate-level apprenticeships would be restricted in the hope of shoring up lower levels.

A couple of months later, Skills Minister Jacqui Smith followed up by confirming that the axing of Level 7 apprenticeships would be “pretty widespread”. What’s more, she didn’t rule out a blanket defunding.

The government’s thinking arises from a belief that employers are taking advantage of apprenticeship levy funding to upskill mostly existing, mostly relatively seasoned staff with MBAs and similarly expensive qualifications. At worst, some employers may be using a claw-back of their levy (which is paid by employers at 0.5% of annual wage bills that exceed £3 million) to give training perks to middle managers.

This activity may not only be offsetting those employers’ own training budgets such that the levy isn’t increasing the overall funding available, but in the process, it is also undermining what the government would prefer, namely that the money is used to address concerns about young people leaving school without more basic levels of employability.

The Government has a point. In 2021/22, nearly half of all Level 6 and 7 apprenticeships were in ‘Business, Administration & Law’. But the employers concerned (often professional services firms, accountants and legal services) may have a point too. They may feel their commercial interests are better served (and more economic activity is generated) by training up current employees who have high demonstrable potential rather than recruiting low-level apprentices who may be less reliable, loyal or productive in the longer term. After all, they might argue, businesses don’t exist to do the government’s job of workforce planning or social engineering.

In the second decade of this century many policy papers punningly declared that they were laying out a ‘2020 vision’. One such document in 2015 laid out the Cameron Government’s reform of English apprenticeships which heralded the introduction of the Apprenticeship Levy in 2017.

This new tax – sorry, ‘levy’ – would, it was envisioned, align skills supply with skill needs and provide a superhighway of progression for apprentices while simultaneously promoting wider access and higher standards.

Sadly, the vision was somewhat rose-tinted. At the time over half a million people started apprenticeships, but since then, the number has plummeted to barely a third of a million (339,580). At over 45%, the drop-out rates from apprenticeships are at a level that would make higher education blush and the system is “beset by widespread and deep-rooted quality issues”.

Meanwhile, apprenticeships have failed to be the hoped-for driver of social mobility for those who don’t pursue university pathways. Just 5% of apprentices were eligible for free school meals.

Given that employers recruit their apprentices and, unlike universities, they are not subject to any fair access requirements, opportunities have tended to follow traditional patterns of advantage.

Most of the fall in apprenticeships is accounted for by the 72% collapse of intermediate apprenticeships (equivalent to Level 2, ie. GCSEs), while higher apprenticeships (equivalent to Level 4 and above) have been the only part of the market to see an expansion – by nearly three times, such that they now make up more than a third of the (albeit lower) total.

There is no reason to suppose that excluding Level 7 apprenticeships from the funding system will suddenly make lower levels more attractive to employers. While it is true that the funding is drawn from the same pool, they are not seen as alternatives by employers: the Business Administration & Law sector is not likely to start offering intermediate apprenticeships to 16-year-old school leavers because they can’t offset their levy by training qualified professionals.

Rather it is in other sectors, where engagement in apprenticeships has been minimal, that the government wants to see the growth. For those employers, the fact that someone else may have been using their apprenticeship levy to fund an MBA was never stopping them from creating more junior opportunities.

What’s been stopping them is the red tape involved in setting up and running apprenticeships, the costs and inconvenience (such as the time of other staff to recruit, manage and train apprentices), and the limited perceived benefits.

Not only is defunding Level 7 apprenticeships not likely to solve the problems in the apprenticeship market, there is also a danger that babies (training that is critical to address skills gaps) might get thrown out with the bathwater (those MBAs which the government thinks should not be publicly subsidised).

For example, there are widely acknowledged and significant skills shortages (insufficient numbers) and gaps (insufficient skill levels) in the engineering sector, a sector that accounts for £645 billion – more than a third of the UK’s GDP. These deficits run the risk of derailing the government’s mission for economic growth.

But engineering is also critical to regional development as the spread of jobs and higher wages are not concentrated in any particular parts of the country. Indeed, often the greatest opportunities are in those parts of the country most in need of growth and improvements in productivity. Engineering higher education is also a major driver of social mobility and opportunity: graduate premiums in engineering are both higher and more equal for those from disadvantaged backgrounds than in other disciplines.

Level 7 apprenticeships in engineering are vital for up-skilling (and re-skilling), which is critical for the challenges outlined in the government’s industrial strategy, such as in defence, advanced manufacturing, clean energy industries, and digital & technologies (particularly AI).

Engineering is a highly dynamic sector with an ageing population of skilled professionals. Even if we can meet the profound challenges of providing sufficient new engineers into the labour market, keeping them there and maintaining their level of expertise will rely on increasing the availability of – and demand for – a combination of in-work training and education at the highest level.

Achieving Level 7 qualifications in engineering (which are often instrumental in professional recognition) is generally too expensive for individuals to embark on at their own cost and, given the competitive demand for skilled labour in the context of shortages, employers are fearful that if they invest heavily in these staff they may be poached by competitors. This is a prime example of where a low-cost intervention by government can have large-scale impact.

In other words, Level 7 apprenticeships in engineering are strategically critical. My understanding is that they are similarly vital in certain other sectors such as health.

The government is right to ensure Growth & Skills Levy funds are spent as effectively as possible, but that will require a nuanced appraisal of what is working and what isn’t as well as a recognition that a slash and burn of waste won’t necessarily promote growth where the government wants it.

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March 12, 2025
The future of apprenticeships under Trump

Advocates for apprenticeship programs came into a second Trump administration with a rosy outlook on their future.

Historically, these on-the-job training programs have enjoyed bipartisan support, and apprenticeships featured prominently in Project 2025, the conservative policy blueprint for a second Trump administration put forth by the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank. The plan encouraged their expansion, lauding the programs as a meaningful alternative to “the woke-dominated system of public schools and universities.”

But now, apprenticeship proponents are divided on how hopeful to feel.

Some maintain their optimism. They foresee a potential period of growth for the programs, as Trump administration officials and supporters speak positively about apprenticeships and nondegree pathways.

But others worry that at least some apprenticeship programs—and their financial supports—could be hurt by the administration’s slashing of federal spending. Already, some grants supporting apprenticeship programs have been cut to trim costs or for perceived connections to diversity, equity and inclusion work. The Advisory Committee on Apprenticeship, which advises the Department of Labor on apprenticeship issues, has been disbanded, along with other federal advisory bodies.

“If the approach is to just cut, cut, cut grants across the government—and the kind of machete-wielding, indiscriminate cutting of things continues—I think that could pose some long-term stress on the system and halt a lot of the momentum that it’s had,” said Taylor White, director of postsecondary pathways for youth at New America, a left-wing think tank, and a former member of the now-defunct advisory committee. She fears the uncertainty caused by federal spending cuts in general could scare off employers or state agencies that otherwise would have invested in these programs.

Apprenticeship-related grants have gotten “caught up” in efforts to scrutinize government spending, said Vinz Koller, vice president of the Center for Apprenticeship and Work-Based Learning at Jobs for the Future, an organization focused on workforce development, though he doesn’t think “they’ve been the target” or that the moves are necessarily indicative of apprenticeships’ future under Trump.

“What we are hearing from the administration is a commitment to registered apprenticeship and to apprenticeship writ large and to making it more widely accessible,” he said. “That leads us to believe, looking into the future, that’s where we’re headed.”

Reasons for Optimism

John Colborn, executive director of Apprenticeships for America, a nonprofit working to expand apprenticeships in the U.S., said it’s “too early to say for sure” what the next four years hold for apprenticeships. But he sees “plenty of positive signs out there,” including supportive rhetoric from current and nominated Trump administration officials.

For example, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon posted on X in November that apprenticeship programs “are a pathway to successful careers,” praising Switzerland’s apprenticeship system as “a model the rest of the world can adapt.”

Similarly, Trump’s pick for secretary of labor, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, said during her Feb. 19 confirmation hearing that she values investing in and “doubling down” on registered or federally recognized apprenticeships.

“Right now, we’re focused on the registered apprenticeships, growing those, investing in those and making sure that those are adhered to,” she told lawmakers.

Her comments were a notable departure from the vision for apprenticeships laid out in Project 2025, which called for a return to an earlier Trump policy of industry-recognized apprenticeships, a separate system to circumvent what Republican lawmakers view as excessive federal regulation. Registered apprenticeships are required to meet certain quality standards to receive federal dollars.

Chavez-DeRemer’s position “came as good news to many of us listening and watching,” White said, though she wonders if Chavez-DeRemer will retain that stance if there’s pressure from the administration to do otherwise.

Colborn believes the current administration might improve the registered apprenticeship system, including speeding up program approvals and expanding the types of occupations that offer apprenticeship options.

He added that so far, the Trump administration hasn’t interfered with financial supports for apprenticeships that the Biden administration instituted. Under Biden, the Department of Labor announced the State Apprenticeship Expansion Formula grant program, which makes $85 million available for states and territories to grow the capacity of existing registered apprenticeships and invest in new offerings.

“I don’t have any official word on this, but every indication we have is that that grant process is going forward,” Colborn said. “We take that as a signifier that this administration is committed to apprenticeship.”

Some apprenticeship advocates hope the moment might be ripe to push for more support and see their policy wish lists fulfilled, including more reliable federal and state funding for apprenticeships, rather than one-off grants, and incentives like tax credits for employers to participate in apprenticeship programs.

“There’s definitely room for the administration to make a mark on the broadening of apprenticeship into more sectors where traditionally they haven’t been as common,” Koller said.

Causes for Concern

Still, some advocates worry apprenticeships will be negatively affected by other policies advanced by the Trump administration.

White, for example, was jarred by the Department of Labor’s decision to ax its Advisory Committee on Apprenticeship, a group of about 30 employers, labor organization representatives and other stakeholders that advises the department on apprenticeship-related policy.

She doesn’t believe the move was intended to signal an anti-apprenticeship stance, given that the committee isn’t the only federal advisory body to bite the dust. A February executive order got rid of a handful of them and called on government officials to flag “Federal Advisory Committees that should be terminated on grounds that they are unnecessary.”

But the disbanding of the committee still feels like a “confusing signal” and a potential obstacle to progress, White said.

“What’s lost by dissolving a community like that is the connection to the people on the ground who are actually having to interpret regulation, live regulation, build the programs, implement the programs,” she added. She sees such perspectives as critical to making apprenticeships “more efficient, more accessible, more functional and, frankly, a more mainstream training option for Americans to access high-quality training and good middle-class jobs.”

Like the advisory committee, some federal funding for apprenticeship programs and apprenticeship-related research projects has gotten caught in the crossfire as the administration works to downsize government and curtail DEI work.

Notably, the Department of Government Efficiency’s website shows about $18 million in cuts to three grants issued by the Department of Labor’s Office of Apprenticeship, according to The Job, a newsletter that covers education and workforce issues.

Managed by the consulting firm ICF, one of the grants was for “technical assistance and coaching support” and one for “industry engagement and outreach.” DOGE’s documentation said only that the grants were terminated “for convenience,” meaning the cuts were in the government’s interest. Another impacted grant was for “technical and coaching assistance support,” managed by a subsidiary of the American Institutes for Research. The Job also reported in late February that several research projects related to apprenticeships had their federal funding frozen.

Another victim of federal cuts was Reach University, a nonprofit institution with a mission to offer on-the-job credentials, called apprenticeship degrees. The institution lost three grants, totaling $14.7 million, from the Education Department. (Teacher-training grants at other institutions have also been slashed for supposed connections to DEI. Three teacher preparation groups sued the Department on Monday over the slew of grant cuts in the field.)

The grants to Reach were supposed to support apprenticeship-based degree programs training teachers in rural Arkansas and Louisiana through 2028. One program helps associate degree holders earn bachelor’s degrees while learning teaching skills on the job in local schools. (The grant application mentioned that the program is a partnership with Delgado Community College, a predominantly Black institution in New Orleans, and would “increase the number of teachers of color in high-need Louisiana schools,” The Job reported.) The other two grants were partnerships with nonprofits to help people in more isolated rural areas earn teaching credentials on the job.

Joe E. Ross, president and CEO of Reach, wrote to Inside Higher Ed that he remains “hopeful” the university will regain the funds through the Education Department’s internal appeals process, and he said university leaders are in touch with department officials. Despite the financial hits, he’s optimistic the administration will be good news for apprenticeships over all.

“We are confident that the projects funded by these grants align with long-standing, bipartisan priorities, including those of this administration,” Ross said. “As applied by Reach, all three of these grants are a merit-based, discrimination-free application of federal funds to meet the department’s long-held priority of alleviating the teacher shortage with residents of the local community.”

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March 7, 2025
Apprenticeships are not an “alternative” to uni, they’re alt-uni
On the first Sunday in July, Ipswich runs a free music festival at Christchurch Park.

It’s a great experience for Ipswich – it’s one of few times in a year where the town is full and busy.

Anyone from an Ipswich secondary school will likely have fond memories – meeting their friends on Hippie Hill – seeing multiple people you know all at once, getting into mosh pits, going on the Booster. The list goes on.

But despite my advocacy for Ipswich, I once found myself anxious to attend. Earlier in my apprenticeship, I had difficult experiences at work with a frequent performer at this festival.

This is something which, nearly six years after the ordeal ended, I am still coming to terms with.

Something which has helped me a great deal is the idea of exposure therapy. This is the act of revisiting certain ideas and places from a new reference point.

The intent is that it neutralises any bad associations with an idea or place by creating new associations. Over time, more neutral or even good experiences will outnumber the bad ones.

It’s like treating grief as a ball in a jar, where the jar grows around the ball over time. The pain is still there when the ball hits the jar, though the ball is much less likely to hit the expanding insides of the jar.

Along these lines, I approached the 2024 Ipswich Music Day with a fresh perspective. Seeing the band in the programme made me reflect on the rhetoric around being an apprentice and how it’s positioned alongside other options.

No alternative

I would argue that apprenticeships are not an alternative to university, at least not in all cases. Whilst it is a clear-cut alternative in some cases, such as advanced apprenticeships, it is more complex for Higher and Degree apprenticeships.

In these cases, it is debatable – on the one hand, these apprentices can attain qualifications at the equivalent level of a degree without attending a university.

In others, such as in my own personal experience, going to university was a core part of my experience – my qualification was a degree accredited by a university.

Gaining an academic education is what drew me to my degree apprenticeship, along with the opportunity to meet other students and experience (and create) a stimulating academic environment with them.

The difference in my case was that I wanted to apply what I had learned much more immediately and meaningfully – doing this would allow the knowledge to be retained more easily for me.

Maybe my experience is not universal – I can’t claim to know what other students’ experience has been like.

Nevertheless, I did my best to gain a fulfilling student experience, which was easier to achieve when I lived locally.

Whilst I did attend the university Film Society and meet up with friends, I did not have the “full” experience – I wasn’t living away from home, and I didn’t have as much free time to study and discover my interests. This is because much of the free time was consumed by a full-time job.

On paper, it does appear to be mostly work with some study release thrown in. This only accounts for the official contact hours, respectively from the employer and the university. To do well as a degree apprentice, you need to be willing to invest time in serious, self-paced academic study outside of the allotted contact hours. From my experience, this was as much as the time I spent at work.

If people who have chosen these options with the express intention of not going to university realise that they have to go to one, then they’re going to dislike the experience or drop out altogether.

Therefore, a contradiction presents itself:

Why is an option promoted as an “alternative to university” when half of it involves going to university?

The common resolution to this contradiction for policymakers and marketers is to just diminish or hide the role of the university as much as possible.

Then, the purpose of the apprenticeship is perceived as solely a means of gaining employment, rather than for its educational merit – university, within this paradigm, is viewed as a distraction or an obstacle to be traversed in order to accomplish solely career-focussed success

But the problem with the approach is disengagement, both socially and academically.

Making the most of it

For me, making the most of the educational aspects of the apprenticeship is as important as making the most of the position of employment.

The goal of an apprenticeship is to start from nothing and to gain experience in a given domain – my own experience shows that the creation of a virtuous cycle of learning is essential in gaining this experience:

The root of the contradiction is a separation between the experience of studying for a degree and the other aspects of university education. These other aspects are often overlooked, of which I have some first-hand experience.

When I have made genuine efforts to engage with every aspect of the experience, I am told that I should have gone to university full-time or that I am spending too much time focussed on academics at the expense of my professional work.

Seeing the band in the Ipswich Music Day programme made me reflect on an approach to resolve the contradiction of promoting degree apprenticeships to people who don’t want to go to university. This solution arguably comes from a change in definitions.

The band defines itself on their website as being “alt-rock”. Alternative rock is a broad genre of rock defined by the fact it is influenced from a diversity of independent music genres.

It is defined as an alternative to forms of rock that were becoming mainstream, such as arena rock – it is a different approach to the common genre of rock. Alt rock is not an alternative to rock as a whole – jazz and classical music are not considered “Alt Rock” for this reason.

We can see that alt-rock doesn’t describe a genre separate from rock. Its approach is different, with alt-rock defining a range of heterophonic subgenres.

Likewise, it can be argued that we should consider arguing for “alt-uni”. This terminology would reflect the fact that degree apprenticeships are alternative to the mainstream of full-time university education, but are not an alternative to university as a whole.

It’s still uni

Arguably, degree apprentices bring a range of learning approaches and knowledge to universities, such as through their professional training.

When I have previously suggested this idea, some argued that “alt-degree” would be a better term, as it focuses on the approach to the degree rather than the university.

But I believe the approach to a degree should be the same for all students, and this expectation contributes to the challenges of completing a degree apprenticeship.

The definition of what this alternative approach would constitute may vary amongst apprentices. Some debate is definitely due, though I would say that the following are important to the definition of alt-uni:
- Every second of university experience matters – an apprenticeship is finite, and we have less time than full-time students. This means careful evaluation of the experience to get the best outcome, academically and socially
- We can immediately and meaningfully apply both academic and professional work to improve the world
- There is the need to establish new precedents over accommodation, socialisation and engagement with university [youth] culture
- We can provide positive role models for studentship unencumbered by student debt, as a means of encouraging the reduction of student debt to ensure that the best options are available for all types of student
- We approach university similarly to students on scholarship. We have effectively been given a scholarship that covers our full loans. I would argue that apprenticeships should seek scholars across the university to inspire each other
- We cannot socialise as much as other students, but socialisation with them is valuable. This is especially true for apprentices of school-leaver age
Degree apprenticeships are not an alternative to university when a university education is involved.

Instead, just as alt-rock is not an alternative to rock, they should be conceived as an alternative approach to university (“alt-uni”).

This approach necessarily requires intentionality, balancing a university life with professional work. Done right, it will create a more inclusive, experience-rich education that values both theory and practice.
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March 7, 2025
Podcast: REF people and culture, spending review, apprenticeships

This week on the podcast universities failing to promote diversity will face funding cuts – so said The Times. We chat through the controversy building around the REF.

Plus we look at what the sector is asking for in the spending review, and consider the government’s push for lower-level, shorter apprenticeships.

With Shitij Kapur, Vice Chancellor and President at King’s College London, Jess Lister, Director (Education) at Public First, Debbie McVitty, Editor at Wonkhe and presented by Mark Leach, Editor-in-Chief at Wonkhe.

Read more:

Universities UK submits to spending review

The barriers that must be removed for degree apprenticeships to meet NHS workforce targets

Higher education institutions have invested time, effort and money in level 7 apprenticeships

Societies that are humane are thoughtful about promoting equality, diversity and inclusion

Predictably bad education

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February 14, 2025
Higher education institutions have invested time, effort and money in level 7 apprenticeships

Many readers might have had an experience along the following lines. You’re on a call, in a meeting, at an event – and someone just happens to let slip that they are doing a postgraduate apprenticeship through their work.

Questions bubble up: isn’t this person someone in a position to fund their own studies? Or perhaps: don’t they already have a master’s degree? You might even be thinking: your manager really lets you duck out of work for training so often?

Now this is pure anecdote – and forgive me if it’s not quite as frequent as I’m assuming – but it’s proved to be a pretty powerful one as debates over apprenticeships have percolated in the press and in the back of policymakers’ minds for the last few years. Allied with controversies over supposed “MBA apprenticeships” (or more recently, MBA top-ups and management training for senior executives), it’s led fairly directly to where we are now.

The government has announced that “a significant number” of level 7 apprenticeships will be removed from levy eligibility in England. The accompanying enjoinder for employers to fund them by other means (if they so choose) is likely the death knell for most of the affected courses, given that without the incentive of levy spending they will largely look like ungainly, over-regulated and rather long bits of exec ed.

Now we still don’t know exactly what decision the government is going to take. And Labour’s moves here do have other motivations – the policy intention is to stop employers spending their allowances on (older, already qualified) existing staff, and therefore give them a free hand to take on younger apprentices at lower levels, including with so-called “foundation apprenticeships”, though there is zero detail on how this shift in employer training priorities is expected to come about.

But still – if this was the only priority, money could have come from elsewhere. The fact remains that level 7 apprenticeships have various black marks hanging over them, whether or not justified, which have made them a safe target to go after. Is it really a good use of taxpayers’ money to fund long and expensive courses of what is overwhelmingly in-work training?

Whose fund is it anyway?

A big part of the issue, however, is this sense that the levy is really “taxpayers’ money”. It isn’t – it’s half a per cent of an employer’s annual pay bill, assuming said pay bill is £3m or more. Alison Wolf’s recent report for the Social Market Foundation vividly spells out the issue here – employers have become hyper-aware of what they “owe” and are incentivised to spend it as fast as they can, a perverse incentive of the current system which has made level 7 programmes more attractive than policymakers assumed.

Much of Labour’s current skills policies have their genesis in a period when employers were not successfully deploying their own levy contributions, and there was a question of how better to direct underspends. This is very much not where we are now. And there are many employers who are not well set-up to pivot to entry-level apprenticeships (think solicitors, for example), or who are stressing their own workforce’s need for higher-level upskilling and pursuing productivity gains rather than a larger headcount.

It could be that the non-apprenticeship part of the growth and skills levy will help square this circle – employers will be able to invest in shorter, possibly more useful workforce training this way, rather than running headlong towards level 7 programmes as the only game in town. The problem is that the government has gone very quiet about this, and we have no sense of what kind of courses will be in scope here.

And much like with the employer national insurance rise, it doesn’t seem to have been thought through how publicly-funded bodies are meant to respond here – NHS trusts and local councils being big users of the apprenticeship levy, by dint of their size. If the government doesn’t want them spending their levy funds on this type of provision, is it asking them to spend cash from elsewhere in their budgets?

Caught in the middle

Stuck between employers’ wishes and government’s aims (or the imagined taxpayer investment) are those education and training providers who have poured resources into making higher-level apprenticeships work. And when we’re talking about level 7 qualifications, it’s universities that have done a lot of the running.

If you had said a decade ago that many if not most universities would be founding and scaling up teams dedicated to reaching out to employers, thinking about training needs, even coordinating levy transfers across partners and supply chains (as the Edge Foundation’s recent research found) – well, it would have sounded like something dreamed up by a think tank, a laudable ambition unlikely to ever come true. And yet, here we are.

The Department for Education and Skills England may decide to limit only a couple of standards – as the chart below shows, simply scrapping the Accountancy and Taxation Professional and Senior Leader standards would dramatically change the landscape (though we’d likely be back in the same position in a few years having a similar conversation about the Senior People Professional and Systems Thinking Practitioner ones).

But once the government starts taking a pick-and-mix approach to standards (as opposed to letting a properly independent arms-length body do so), it opens the door to it happening again and again. If there is a substantial defunding of level 7 apprenticeship standards, expect the next few years to see targets on the back of others, even at level 6 – and an accompanying disincentive for universities to keep pressing ahead seeking out partnerships with employers.

The removal from levy eligibility of standards that currently have a high uptake will have an immediate impact on those providers invested in them. Below, DK has charted apprenticeship starts by higher education institution (and a few other public bodies as they are lumped together in the DfE data, though as you may have noticed above some for-profit universities appear in the private sector category instead).

The default view in this chart shows level 7 starts in 2023–24, broken down by standards, so that you can plumb the impact on different providers of different approaches to defunding. And if you’re getting nervous about what else Skills England might fancy doing once it’s finally got the level 7 announcement out of the way, you can look at provision at other levels too.

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February 10, 2025
The barriers that must be removed for degree apprenticeships to meet NHS workforce targets

The recent notion that level 7 apprenticeships will be ineligible for support from the apprenticeship levy has caused consternation amongst training providers, especially in healthcare.

Training providers and employers are urgently seeking clarity on the government’s position – the current “announcement without action” leaves stakeholders unclear about next steps and further risks the reputation and role of apprenticeships in skills development.

The development of advanced roles in health or shortened routes to registerable qualifications significantly relies on level 7 apprenticeships. The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan is full of examples of how advanced and new roles are needed now and in the future.

Once again, decisions are being made by the Department for Education without consulting or collaborating with the Department of Health and Social Care, which means that questions are left unanswered. It is not the first time that training providers and University Alliance have called for joined up thinking and, unfortunately, it certainly won’t be the last.

Expansion of opportunity

Health apprenticeships at the University of Derby started small with level 5 provision about ten years ago (subsequently expanding to levels 6 and 7) – we could not have foreseen the enormous expansion of opportunity both in health and other industries that would follow.

I am proud to say that “I was there” when the nurse degree apprenticeship standard was approved in 2017 – the culmination of two years’ collaboration between the Nursing and Midwifery Council, government, Skills for Health, employers and training providers.

There were challenges, but we made it, and it opened the door to transformation in how healthcare professionals are educated.

A bumpy road

But the journey remains bumpy, and apprenticeships seem to be experiencing a particular period of turbulence. New research conducted by the University of Derby on behalf of University Alliance demonstrates the need for change in how the levy is utilised, the importance of partnership working, and the support that those involved with apprenticeship delivery need in order to secure successful outcomes.

While the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan of 2023 is itself being refreshed, we can be confident that apprenticeships will continue to have a significant part to play in workforce development. However, our new research has shown how and where employers and training providers need support to make this happen.

Employers told us how expensive they find it to support apprenticeships, with apprentice salaries, backfill and organisational infrastructure contributing to the financial burden. We know that apprentices need significant support through their learning journey, taking time and investment from employers.

To make apprenticeships truly successful, the support required is over and above that normally expected in healthcare programmes, yet apprenticeships are specifically excluded from the NHS Healthcare Education and Training tariff. This feels like a double whammy – no support from the tariff and no flexibility in how the levy could be utilised differently, meaning that the responsibility remains with the employer to resource.

Equally, training providers reported the additional activities and responsibilities associated with the delivery of apprenticeships. The University of Derby has recently successfully completed its inspection by Ofsted. The week of the inspection required input from teams across the University, but the enduring responsibilities of compliance and record keeping make this a continuous activity for a skilled and specialist team.

The Education and Skills Funding Agency then came hot on the tails of Ofsted – while this is not unexpected, it has again required teams from across the University working long hours to be audit ready. These inspections have served as a reminder of the regulatory burden placed on training providers, especially in healthcare.

A matter of commitment

Today marks the start of National Apprenticeship Week. At the University of Derby, we are hosting a week of activities and events, encouraging aspirant apprentices and a range of employers to come and find out more about what apprenticeships can do for them. It is heartening to hear that the number of young people coming to the campus this year has more than doubled since last year’s event.

Finally, the word is beginning to spread about apprenticeships, and we find school leavers are increasingly well informed about their post-16 and post-18 options.

The week’s events will be ably supported by our employer partners and apprentices, truly reflecting the partnerships that have developed over the years. These partnerships take a significant amount of investment on all sides – anyone in the vocational education and training world will know that strong partnerships take time and effort to build and maintain. But even the briefest of conversations with apprentices will tell you that it is all worth it. Their confidence, passion and knowledge (their skills and behaviours too) shine through. In a city like Derby, the awareness of the positive difference you are making not only to the apprentice, but also to their family and friends, is never far from your thoughts.

It is difficult to know how the advent of Skills England will impact the pace and scale of reform, but the present inertia may set the country back – and it certainly will if a blanket approach to level 7 apprenticeship funding is adopted, and lack of join-up between DfE and DHSC remains the status quo.

National Apprenticeship Week 2025 has the potential to be a force for good – and should be the week that all stakeholders commit to making a difference.

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February 10, 2025
A blanket removal of funding for level 7 apprenticeships will damage government plans to boost infrastructure

Level 7 apprenticeship growth has been one of the higher education success stories of recent years.

Our technical education system is weak by international standards, yet high level technical skills will be vital to the urban planning and infrastructure improvement ambitions of our current government, while at the same time boosting social mobility by allowing those who can’t afford to study on a traditional course at university the opportunity to gain a postgraduate qualification.

It therefore would appear counterintuitive that the government has been hinting that many if not all level 7 apprenticeships could have their eligibility for levy funding removed, couched in language of prioritising spending on growing lower level and new “foundation” apprenticeships.

This proposed redistribution fails to acknowledge that progression benefits apprentices at all levels, as those moving into senior roles create new vacancies or advancement opportunities via the positions they vacate.

Build baby build?

Nowhere is this clearer than in the built environment sector. The UK’s housing crisis is the pivotal issue that this government has promised to tackle. Their promise to build 1.5 million new homes by 2030 is ambitious – it has been labelled unachievable by the CEO of the UK’s largest housebuilding company because of skills shortages, and most councils are reporting that it won’t be possible to achieve.

If such a goal is to be accomplished, it will demand highly skilled professionals to streamline planning processes, deliver housing projects, and support regional infrastructure development.

At my institution, London South Bank University (LSBU), 70 per cent of our level 7 apprentices are on the chartered town planner standard. On a day-to-day basis they address planning bottlenecks and ensure that housing and infrastructure projects meet the various regulatory and environmental standards. Only last month the first level 7 chartered town planner apprentices in England graduated successfully from LSBU having joined their employer with no prior experience in the planning sector aged 18 after completing school.

Over half of the employers we work with at LSBU on level 7 apprenticeships are local authorities. Our apprentices enable councils to deliver projects in the wake of increased demand and reintroduced mandatory housing targets. The suggestion that, as employers, local authorities should step in and pay for the level 7 apprenticeships themselves is fanciful. The legacy of austerity has left one in four councils expecting to apply for an emergency government bailout in the next two years. If the Treasury decides to remove levy funding, employers will not be able to fill the gap.

If the UK hopes to comply with the Future Homes Standard and the National Retrofit Strategy V2, more highly trained architects are required. The profession is in high demand but short supply – it had been on the Shortage Occupation List until the previous government abolished the list last April.

Level 7 architect apprentices, of which LSBU currently train 78, design energy-efficient buildings and support urban regeneration. They contribute to both public housing schemes and private sector developments by driving innovation in sustainable construction and are already supporting the government’s ambition to retrofit five million homes by 2029.

Growth ambitions

In addition to their clear role in developing infrastructure, level 7 apprenticeships are vital for social mobility. They open doors for individuals from underrepresented groups, in part because apprentices earn whilst they learn and aren’t put off by the prospect of incurring student debt. A true leveller of the playing field, they provide excellent career progression opportunities and higher earnings potential. A greater proportion of our level 7 apprentices are from black, Asian, and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds (55 per cent) and are female (52 per cent) than those studying apprenticeships at lower levels.

Most of our level 7 apprentices are under the age of 25, so the characterisation that they are simply the reserve of older learners is unfounded. For example, at LSBU, we provide tailored pathways for young learners to embark on higher level apprenticeships in regionally relevant sectors from level 2 to level 7 through our unique group model which includes London South Bank Sixth Form (a new technically focused sixth form academy concept) and London South Bank Technical College (the first technical college for a generation).

Level 7 apprenticeships are central to this government’s ambitions around growth, sustainability, and equality of opportunity. Despite recent increases in uptake, they have actually accounted for a slightly smaller proportion of the total apprenticeship budget over the last couple of years.

Every standard addresses unique challenges and supports sector-specific needs. A blanket removal of funding from level 7 apprenticeships will risk planning reforms and housing developments. At the very least, apprenticeships in the ten sectors prioritised by Skills England as growth-driving need to be protected from Treasury cuts.

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February 10, 2025
Degree Apprenticeships in England: What Can We Learn from the Experiences of Apprentices, Employers, and Education and Training Providers?

By Josh Patel, Researcher at the Edge Foundation.

Degree Apprenticeships (DAs) were launched in 2015, as a novel work-based learning route to obtaining a degree. On their introduction, then Prime Minister David Cameron said they would ‘give people a great head start, combining a full degree with real practical skills gained from work and the financial security of a regular pay packet’. Since then, they have taken the higher education sector by storm. Their growth has been the key factor in the expansion of higher apprenticeships from 43,800 starts in 2015/16 to 273,700 in 2023/24, a rise from 4.8% to 35% of all apprenticeships. They have stimulated innovative models of delivery and new and productive relationships between employers and providers. Former Skills Minister Robert Halfon remarked that ‘Degree Apprenticeships’ were his ‘two favourite words in the English language’.

DAs have, however, recently come under scrutiny. Concerns persist that the growth of DAs and their high cost – reported in the media as growing from 2% of the apprenticeship budget in 2017/18 to 21% in 2021 – might crowd out opportunities for young entrants to the workforce, as DAs are primarily taken by existing employees. The suitability of DAs as instruments to improve upward social mobility has been contested. Meanwhile, the government is drawing up plans to increase the flexibility of the Apprenticeship Levy through which Degree Apprenticeships can currently be funded, asking employers ‘to rebalance their funding for apprenticeships… to invest in younger workers’.

Our report, ‘Degree Apprenticeships in England: What Can We Learn from the Experiences of Apprentices, Employers, and Education and Training Providers?’, written in collaboration with colleagues from the Universities of Bath, Huddersfield, and Oxford, was published on Tuesday and is a timely intervention into these discussions. Here, we present the evidence for some our policy recommendations, gathered from nearly 100 interviews with stakeholders including large employers and SMEs, providers, degree apprentices, and policymakers.

Engaging employers

The government needs to consider a more systematic approach that serves to rationalise the way that employers are supported to offer a wide range of work-based opportunities. As Edge has identified in other programmes, such as T Levels or plans to provide universal work experience through the government’s Youth Guarantee, DAs are restricted by the number of employers willing to engage. We repeatedly heard evidence of the difficulties ‘resource-poor’ employers had in engaging with the design of apprenticeship standards and participating fully in collaboration with providers. As one SME told us contributing to the design and development of a DA ‘doesn’t give me any benefit now, and I’m impatient’.

The government needs to develop a coherent strategy for DAs with a particular focus on support for SMEs, including improved awareness of levy transfer schemes. Involvement in DAs is often based on being ‘in the know’ and contacts with providers and local authorities. In our ‘Learning from the past’ stream of work, we reviewed Education Business Partnerships, as an example of intermediary organisations, noting both their strengths and shortcomings, which could inform effective initiatives for supporting employers.

Reducing complexity

With the creation of Skills England, the government should take the opportunity to review and simplify the process of design, delivery and quality assurance for DAs, and ensure regulatory elements work together. DAs currently draw in a large number of bodies including the OfS, IfATE, regulatory bodies, professional bodies and Ofsted. Providers told us that this had created a complex landscape of ‘many masters’ where lines of accountability are blurred and innovation is stifled. Providers described ‘overregulation’ as limiting ‘our ability to go off-piste’, and while the process could be constructive, providers were unconvinced of its added value. ‘Does that add to the quality?’ one provider asked. ‘I don’t think it necessarily does’.

Skills England’s remit includes shaping technical education to respond to skills needs, and its incorporation of IfATE has already begun. As a first exercise, it could review the regulatory requirements to remove any duplication and contradictions and then consult with the sector to devise a simpler, clearer mechanism for providers to report.

Increasing flexibility

These difficulties meant that, while we found examples of excellent integration of academic learning and the workplace, concerns persisted as to the vocational relevance and obsolescence of learning, particularly in fast-moving sectors such as IT and mental health provision. One employer involved in delivery said they told their apprentices: ‘we have to teach you this so you get through your apprenticeship, but actually in practice that is not the way it’s done any longer’.

In other countries, such as the Netherlands, a proportion (up to 20-25%) of an apprenticeship standard is kept flexible to be agreed between the employer and provider so that it can take better account of the current and changing situation in that particular industry, location and employer – such flexibility could be piloted in the UK.

…without compromise

The government’s commitment to adapting the levy into a ‘Growth and Skills Levy’, offers opportunities to improve DA delivery. Diversification was not a major consideration for the majority of employers when recruiting, though we certainly did hear evidence from those with a strong sense of their social corporate responsibility. As one SME put it:

there are too many people in the IT industry that are like me. So we’re talking middle-aged white guys. […] Now, DAs allow people who don’t necessarily, wouldn’t consider getting into this industry from a variety of backgrounds, creeds, colours…

We recommended in our Flex Without Compromise report that the government should take a measured approach to levy reform to minimise the risk that a broadening of scope diminishes the opportunities available particularly for younger people and newer entrants to the labour market. It should consider modelling the impact of differentiating levy funding available for DAs by either or both age and staff status, and diversification of the workforce. This could be a powerful mechanism to encourage employers to focus DA opportunities on younger people and on new recruits but would need to be considered carefully to allow for continued expansion of DAs.

These initiatives might help address existing challenges and enhance the efficacy of Degree Apprenticeships in fostering equitable access and meeting the needs of learners and employers.

To find out more about Edge and to read the report in full, visit www.edge.co.uk

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January 30, 2025