England’s apprenticeship rethink should look across the Atlantic

When skills minister Jacqui wrote to Skills England on June 22 to commission an urgent review of apprenticeship funding, she did something British ministers rarely do. She admitted a well-intentioned policy produced the opposite of its intended result, concluding “…the apprenticeship system is in need of reform.”

Apprenticeships among 16–24-year-olds fell by 40 per cent over the previous decade. More than half of new apprenticeships went to learners over 25. An employer levy to open the career ladder became a way to subsidize incumbent workers. The first rung of the career ladder was missing.

Across the Atlantic, the U.S. was watching, though not carefully. It never had a national apprenticeship system. It has a patchwork of federal goals that shift with presidential administrations, federally registered programs, state agencies, and industry intermediaries.

The National Apprenticeship Act hasn’t been substantially updated since 1937. Yet, as England resets, the U.S. experience offers something useful. It’s not a model to copy, but a set of contrasts illuminating what England got wrong and possible alternatives.

The U.S. model avoided England’s specific failure by design and historical accident. Because there’s no single national levy that employers pay against their payroll, the U.S. system never developed the English dynamic, where employers use training funds to retrain current workers.

American employers must choose to sponsor or join a registered apprenticeship program. That creates different problems. For example, scale is harder to achieve. But the system isn’t captured by the most convenient participants at the expense of young people starting work.

The U.S. has also unevenly invested in youth pathways. High school apprenticeship models in states like Colorado, South Carolina, and Indiana allow students to earn and learn before graduation, with pathways into postsecondary programs. These aren’t yet mainstream. But they represent the logic that England’s new foundation apprenticeships and relaunched level 2 route want to recapture.

The American weakness flips the English one. Where England over-centralized and allowed a levy-funded system to be captured by the most powerful participants, the U.S. under-centralized and produced a fragmented landscape that employers find difficult to navigate.

One analysis shows U.S. completion rates remain below 50 percent. At least four states have fewer active apprentices today than in 2016. Despite a manufacturing reshoring agenda that depends on skilled workers, manufacturing accounts for only about 4 percent of active apprentices.

Youth access is where both countries clearly fall short, in different ways. In England, levy money drifted away from young people to existing employees. In the U.S., the first step on the career ladder was always harder to find. Those aged 16 to 18 are particularly underrepresented. The term “youth apprenticeship” has no consistent federal definition.

Three things are worth considering as Skills England rebuilds the system.

First, employer incentive structures matter more than levy design. The new commitments, 100 percent training cost coverage for 16–24-year-olds at small firms and a £2,000 hiring payment, are steps forward. They target employers most likely to hire young people new to work. U.S. intermediary models show that reducing employer burden can be more important than increasing employer funding.

Second, the pathway matters as much as the program. U.S. states making the most progress have built connected sequences from secondary school through registered apprenticeship to degree-level credentials. Adding entry-level programmes without aligning schools, colleges, employers, and credential bodies isn’t enough.

Third, completion deserves as much attention as starts. The U.S. processes more cancellations each year than completions. Britain’s target of a 70 per cent achievement rate is the right priority. Hitting it requires addressing the practical reasons apprentices leave early. For example, there are weak mentoring, financial pressure, and transportation problems. Measuring outcomes after the fact isn’t the same as preventing the exit before it happens.

Britain’s June 2026 reset and America’s current debate over apprenticeships are attempts to solve the same problem with different tools. The first rung of the career ladder is the hardest to build. Neither country has yet made it reliably available to every young person who needs it. There’s more to learn from each other’s mistakes and accomplishments than either side acknowledges.