Apprenticeship starts in England dropped by 6 per cent in the first quarter of 2022/23 while traineeship starts fell 17 per cent, new government figures show.
Provisional in-year Department for Education data states there were 122,290 apprenticeship starts recorded from August to October compared to 130,240 for the same period in 2021/22.
The apprenticeship starts recorded for the first quarter of 2022/23 are also 3 per cent down on the 125,800 reported for same period in 2019 before the pandemic struck.
While starts are down overall, take up of higher apprenticeships has continued to grow – rising by 10 per cent from 38,230 in 2021/22 to 42,060 in 2022/23.
Starts at level 6 and 7 increased by 14 per cent to 22,060, which now represents 18 per cent of all starts reported to date for 2022/23.
The biggest drop was seen at level 2 – falling 18 per cent from 35,740 to 29,150. Starts at level 3 dropped 9 per cent from 56,270 to 51,080.
Starts for young people aged 16 to 18 dropped by 4 per cent from 40,130 to 38,480, while starts for those aged 19 and above fell 7 per cent from 90,110 to 83,810.
Today’s data provides further evidence as to why the government has decided to scrap traineeships.
Despite investing hundreds of millions of pounds in additional funding to ramp up the pre-employment programme after the pandemic, starts were down by 17 per cent to 4,600 in the first quarter of 2022/23 compared to 5,600 reported for the same period in the previous year.
There were 5,700 traineeship starts in the same period in 2019.
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