Last week, the DfE published its latest statistics on the number of apprenticeships being started. These fell by 69 per cent between 2015/16 and 2021/22 - primarily due to reforms to the apprenticeship system coupled with disruption created by the Covid-19 pandemic. In this article, we examine what the latest data tells us about the extent of the recovery.
A bumpy ride…
The Government introduced a raft of reforms to the apprenticeship system in the last decade. These were aimed at addressing concerns about the quality, length and content of apprenticeships, and were intended to improve their responsiveness to employer needs. However, NFER research has shown that these reforms have had a substantial impact on the number of apprenticeships being started, particularly among young people.
This is illustrated in Figure 1, which shows total starts fell from 509,000 in 2015/16 to 393,000 in 2018/19. They then fell further to around 320,000 in the following two years, primarily due to the pandemic, before recovering in 2021/22 to 349,000.
