Creating more high-quality apprenticeships across the UK could help meet soaring demand while tackling talent shortages, according to a new UCAS and Sutton Trust report released today (6 July).
The report, ‘Where Next: What influences the choices of would-be apprentices?’, published jointly by UCAS and the Sutton Trust, reveals the choices and barriers students face on the journey to an apprenticeship, such as when discovering, applying for and entering a role.
The new research finds a significant proportion of students do not pursue an apprenticeship because of issues in accessing opportunities. Three in five (61%) former applicants did not pursue an apprenticeship because they could not find one in their preferred location while one in three (35%) students previously interested in studying an apprenticeship said they were prevented from doing so due to a lack of roles in their desired career.
This comes amid a significant growth in demand for apprenticeships, with 40% of all UCAS undergraduate applicants now interested in an apprenticeship role – about 430,000 potential apprentices – with projections that interest could surge to over half a million by the end of the decade as part of the Journey to a Million. While the Apprenticeship Levy has doubled the funding available for apprenticeships since its implementation in 2017, to £2.5 billion each year, 99.6 % of this was spent in 2021-22. This means the system is under significant pressure without enough apprenticeship opportunities to meet demand.
