The apprenticeship market for universities – including degree apprenticeships – has been the focus of much attention in recent years, as ministers and institutions seek a more diversified post-18 offer. Barely a week goes by without Secretary of State Gillian Keegan or Robert Halfon, Minister for Skills, Further and Higher Education, extolling the virtues of degree apprenticeships to anyone who will listen. But how is this market developing and which providers appear to be performing best?
Let’s start with the basics. An apprenticeship is a job with training. It blends learning on the job with further learning and development activity away from normal work duties, such that the learner is occupationally competent by the end of their programme.
Major reform to the apprenticeship product and a radical change to funding have combined to transform the apprenticeship market in England. The introduction in 2017 of the Apprenticeship Levy, paid by large employers at a rate of 0.5% of payroll cost and made available to invest in apprenticeships on a ‘use it or lose it’ basis, has helped to grow annual investment from £1.6bn in 2016/17 to £2.5bn in 2021/22. Two-thirds of apprenticeship investment is now by the 22,000 or so levy-paying employers. At the same time, over 650 employer-defined occupational standards have developed, setting out the requirements apprentices must meet to complete successfully and reach full competence.
Over a quarter – 162 – of standards are at level 6 or 7, including 109 that contain a mandatory degree qualification. Professions where apprenticeship is now an established entry route include chartered accountancy, nursing, teaching, chartered surveying, social work and solicitors. There is even an Academic Professional (level 7) apprenticeship, completed by a few hundred people each year working at universities. The recent NHS Long Term Workforce Plan plans to recruit around 9000 apprentice nurses (20% of all nursing recruits) by 2028/29. Almost a quarter of NHS clinical staff will be recruited via apprenticeships by 2032.
