£6.3m available for T Level placement incentive fund for employers

The government has made £6.3 million available to incentivise employers to provide construction and health T Level industry placements. 

The Department for Education (DfE) today announced allocations for a “targeted” employer support fund (ESF) to support small and large employers offer placements for health and construction T Level students. 

The revived fund will make £1.8 million available, and ringfenced, for all-sized employers delivering the construction T Level industry placements, funded through the government’s March announcement of £600 million for construction training.

The remaining ringfenced £4.5 million will be available for employers of all sizes to set up industry placements for learners on health T Levels.

It will also go towards upfront costs for small employers offering placements for all other T Levels. 

DfE announced in April that it would offer the fund again for health T Levels for the financial year 2025/26 after it trialled the ESF in 2023/24 and reviewed the pilot findings. 

DfE previously said the funding reflects feedback from older pilots about “specific” upfront costs for employers and should be used where placements “could otherwise not be offered”.

But the cash incentive has previously had low take up from employers. 

An FE Week investigation in March found £3.9 million of the £8.5 million dished out through the one-year T Level Employer Support Fund available from April 2023 to March 2024.

How it works

In an ESF guidance page, updated today, DfE said it would hand out payments for essential costs for T Level placements starting on or between 23 April 2025 and 31 March 2026.

T Levels include a mandatory industry placement of 315 hours, or 45 days, that must be completed over the two-year course in order for students to pass.

The government relaxed the rules in December that allowed 20 per cent of almost all placements to be completed remotely in a bid to boost student numbers. 

Colleges delivering T Levels will be eligible to claim the funding and will be provided a funding allocation based on an estimate of the number of students and the assumed proportion of employers needing support.

Arms-length bodies offering health placements, such as NHS Blood and Transplant, are eligible to claim from the fund, but all other government departments, agencies and public bodies are banned.

Although there is no maximum limit to claims that any one employer can make, the DfE has clarified that the per-student claim should not exceed £800.

DfE will pay providers every two months in arrears once it processes claims through a new online claims tool, the guidance for which has not yet been published.

It said the department’s expectation will support “as many students as possible” and support the scaling-up and expansion of placements, and for sustained use of equipment.

Employers must submit declaration forms outlining their claim costs, which providers are responsible for ensuring are legitimate.

“Providers will need to take strategic value-for-money decisions to maximise the impact of the fund, balancing the needs of various employers. They should consider this when deciding how to allocate their funding,” the guidance said.

If an industry placement ends unexpectedly, DfE said employers are not automatically subject to a clawback of the funding. 

Instead, it said that providers and employers should “discuss the situation” and agree on the appropriate action. 

“In some cases, when an employer stops offering a placement but has already claimed funding, the provider may choose to approach the employer for a refund,” the guidance said.