Other measures to encourage more organisations to take on young apprentices include no employer national insurance contributions for under-25s, £1,000 payments for employers and training providers when taking on young people aged under 19 (or under 25 for those with an education, health and care plan), and a bursary of £3,000 for apprentices with care experience aged 16-24.
At the 2021 Spending Review, the government announced apprenticeship funding would rise from £2.5bn to £2.7bn by 2024/25, to support more starts for people of all ages. The following year, the government raised the national minimum apprenticeship wage by 9.7 per cent to £5.28 an hour.
Last year, the Department for Education announced that from 2024 apprenticeship opportunities will be advertised on the UCAS portal, allowing young people to search for, and learn about, both degree and apprenticeship options. In its review of post-16 qualifications, the parliamentary education committee praised the move as “an important step toward ensuring parity of esteem between academic and vocational routes”.
In addition, the DfE funded Apprenticeship Support and Knowledge (ASK) programme provides schools and further education colleges across England with a free bespoke package of comprehensive information, advice and guidance to increase awareness of apprenticeships amongst students, parents, carers, teachers and careers advisers. During the 2022/23 academic year, ASK engaged with over 2,400 schools and colleges and reached 625,000 students and 45,000 parents/carers.
Falling youth apprenticeships
Despite the series of government inducements for employers to take on youth apprentices, there has been a long-term decline in apprenticeship starts among 16- to 18-year-olds and at level 2.
The number of apprenticeship starts among under-19s has declined from 131,420 in 2015/16 to 77,520 in 2021/22, a fall of 41 per cent. This decline is deeper than the fall in apprenticeship starts for all ages (31 per cent) and for over-25s (26 per cent) over the same period. The share of all apprenticeship starts that are for under-19s has dropped from 26 to 22 per cent since 2015/16, with the share for 19- to 24-year-olds staying roughly the same.
In his evidence to the education committee inquiry, former universities minister Lord Willetts said: “Apprenticeships are going up the age scale and up the educational levels. Apprentices are becoming older, and they are more and more at levels 3, 4 and above.” In its report, the committee recommends the DfE undertakes a review to understand the factors driving the decline and what changes can be made to address it.
The number of starts on intermediate (level 2, GCSE equivalent) apprenticeships, has fallen by 69 per cent between 2015/16 and 2021/22 (from 291,330 to 91,520). The committee says this “is of particular concern as intermediate apprenticeships provide that crucial first rung of the ladder for many young or disadvantaged learners”.
Despite the long-term decline, the previous 12 months offered some encouraging signs with the number of starts among under-19s rising by 19 per cent, although the committee warn this is likely to be a short-term rebound from steep declines during the pandemic.
Reform levy to reverse decline
The committee heard from several experts who attributed the decline in youth apprenticeship starts on employers using the apprenticeship levy funding to upskill their existing workforce.
The Federation of Awarding Bodies explained that since the introduction of the apprenticeship levy, “most employers have shunned 16- to 18-year-olds; and they have increasingly opted in larger volumes to go for degree level apprenticeships instead of hiring apprentices at level 2”.
The design of the apprenticeship levy has resulted in funds going towards rebadging training as an apprenticeship, for example on management courses to upskill existing employees, rather than supporting provision for under-19s. The CBI described the levy as “a barrier to business investment” noting that levy payers “are encouraged by its design to rebadge training, to use their funds”.
They recommended the government reform the way the levy works to mandate employers to spend a certain proportion of funding on under-19s. This was a recommendation of the Lord’s youth unemployment committee’s Skills for every young person report and has been echoed by Nick Harrison, chief executive of the Sutton Trust (see debate).
However, the education committee report warns that any reform that reduced levy flexibility is unlikely to be popular among employers, who have consistently called for greater flexibility on spending levy funds on training and development.
Career hubs boost
Careers hubs bring together schools, colleges, employers, and apprenticeship providers in local areas to “build strong local partnerships, learn from each other and develop high quality careers programmes that align with local economic and skills priorities”.
The 2021 Skills for Jobs White Paper stated an intention to “continue to extend coverage of careers hubs to local communities across England” and as of October 2022, 90 per cent of schools and colleges were in hubs.
The education committee in its report on careers education, information, advice and guidance states: “Evidence highlighted the importance of having local collaboration between schools, employers and training providers, describing them as the glue in local systems […] essential to providing coherence for delivery in schools.”
Evidence found schools in hubs are more likely to be increasing young people’s awareness of apprenticeships. However, the Sutton Trust highlighted the importance of ongoing evaluation of the hubs programme to ensure that it continues to have an impact and shows a positive impact.
More flexible placements
Apprenticeship starts for small and medium sized employers declined by 57 per cent between 2015/16 and 2019/20. To address this, the DfE introduced new flexible apprenticeships via its flexi-job apprenticeship scheme. This enables apprentices to complete short placements in industries such as construction and the creative arts where they can’t be placed for the full year due to the short-term nature of projects in these sectors. The flexi scheme is currently a relatively small-scale initiative, with up to 1,500 apprentices expected to be recruited by 2023, but the committee recommends it be expanded to support 5,000 by 2025.
Meanwhile, the committee heard evidence that apprenticeships are not being adequately promoted through careers guidance at school – contrary to the Baker Clause, which requires schools to give access to providers of vocational courses and apprenticeships. Most members of a panel of young people aged 16–18 told MPs they had not been told about apprenticeships at school but had been informed about them once they were at college.
One young apprentice said his secondary school careers advisor “had lots of information on universities but none on apprenticeships”. The committee wants Ofsted to be tough in its assessments of schools that fail to give sufficient priority to vocational routes.
The committee also recommends the DfE consider extending targeted support, such as the bursary for care leavers, to other disadvantaged groups of younger apprentices to arrest the long-term decline in under-19 starts. “All too often older, more highly qualified workers are being prioritised for apprenticeships at the expense of young people trying to get their foot on the first rung of the careers ladder,” it states in the report. “For apprenticeships to play their full part in the ladder of opportunity, they need to reach both groups.”
ADCS view: Apprenticeship reforms have failed disadvantaged young people
John Pearce, ADCS president 2023/24
Apprenticeships are often seen as a key tool to improve social mobility and to ultimately “level up” the country. They have the potential to open up a huge number of opportunities for young people when embarking on their career and can often provide an avenue for those who may benefit from more vocational routes into employment. For children from disadvantaged backgrounds, who are overrepresented in the number of school exclusions and on average achieve fewer GCSEs, apprenticeships can offer the kind of opportunities that are not available via other pathways.
In 2017, the government’s apprenticeship reform programme led to the introduction of the apprenticeship levy and an ambitious target of creating three million apprenticeships by 2020 was established. However, not only has this target not been met, it has coincided with an overall drop in the number of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds taking up apprenticeships. While this was exacerbated by the pandemic, the Social Mobility Commission was clear that the introduction of the levy in 2017 has led to a “collapse in overall apprenticeship starts that hit disadvantaged learners hardest”.
Creating equal access to apprenticeships should become an immediate focus for government to attract more young people onto both intermediate and advanced apprenticeships; the current system disproportionately benefits those from better-off backgrounds. Indeed, we know that nearly half of pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds don’t achieve a grade 4 at GCSE in both English and maths, but this is often a minimum requirement for training providers or employers. This trend appears all the more counterproductive when considering the government’s recent push to encourage more people to start a career in the early years sector, in order to deliver on its planned expansion of provision, with apprenticeships being a valuable route.
The worrying trend we are seeing in apprenticeships is reflected more widely across the rest of the education system. The disadvantage gap among children is widening, yet national reforms introduced across the early years, school and FE sectors in recent years have exacerbated this problem. For example, in post-16 provision we are seeing a narrowing of the offer due to the removal of funding for a large number of level 3 qualifications in favour of T Levels which are more heavily focussed on academic attainment. As a consequence, those young people, who would be well suited to fill shortage occupation gaps, are unable to do so because the qualifications that would previously have offered them a pathway no longer exist.
We need better long-term and joined up thinking from government if we are to tackle the systemic issues that prevent those from disadvantaged backgrounds achieving a better future. There is rightly a national focus on levelling up and ensuring disadvantaged children remain in school, but if we don’t create the right opportunities for them once they leave, we risk undoing all our collective efforts.
Further reading
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Careers education, information, advice and guidance review and government response, education committee, June 2023
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Future of post-16 qualifications and government response, education committee, April 2023
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Skills for every young person report, Lords youth unemployment committee and government response, April 2022
