“It’s better than it looks on paper.” That’s what skills minister Alex Burghart told FE Week when we asked him if the £4.81 an hour apprentice minimum wage was enough in the face of rising prices.
That was back in March, the day before the chancellor Rishi Sunak delivered his spring statement in the House of Commons, which pledged to ease cost of living pressures.
With universal concern about the declining numbers of young people taking up apprenticeships, and as the sector tries to understand the reasons behind eye-watering dropout rates, coming back to pay was, and still is, a fair issue to press.
The minister let slip at the time that he believed the median income for apprentices was around the £8.24 mark and reminded FE Week that apprentices over age 19 who have completed the first year of their apprenticeship are entitled to the minimum wage.
