Ahead of National Apprenticeship Week next week, Jasmine Hudson, Chief People Officer at Mitie, discusses how reforming the Apprenticeship Levy to allow for more flexible and shorter courses can help plug the UK’s green skills gap
For all too long, higher education has been synonymous with attending university and achieving a degree. However, as someone who has risen through the ranks to become Chief People Officer of one of Britain’s biggest employers, in part by being able to study while working, I’m proud to see a rise in status for ‘earn and learn’ qualifications, such as apprenticeships. By evolving the Levy to be more flexible to employers’ skills needs, apprenticeships can create more opportunities and be an accelerating force for the UK’s economy and skills workforce.
The benefits of apprenticeships are clear. While for every £1 spent on further education qualifications, the return on investment is around £20, for apprenticeships this is on average £7 higher, at £26 - £28. Yet apprenticeships are still not living up to their full potential as a growth driver – for learners, British businesses, and the UK economy.
Apprenticeships help provide a key talent pool for Britain and boost the UK’s productivity and economic growth, with each year’s cohort contributing almost £700m a year to the UK economy. Employers are, however, facing barriers to helping prospective apprenticeships reach their true potential because of the current ‘use it or lose it’ Apprenticeship Levy approach. A total of £3.3bn of unspent Levy has been returned to the Treasury in the last three years — that’s all money that could, and should, be spent equipping our workforces with the skills we, as a British business, need for the future.
