Ministers have launched a £3.2 million grant scheme to subsidise training and employment costs in a drive to recruit 400 early years teacher degree apprentices.
Through the scheme, early years employers can access £9,000 per apprentice per year to cover training costs. Meanwhile, training providers can claim £8,000 per apprentice to pass on to employers to cover employment costs like backfill and national insurance.
The Department for Education (DfE) said the programme will help make careers in the early years sector “more attractive” and rewarding amid a shortfall in graduate-level qualified staff.
Early education minister Olivia Bailey said the funding will help “build skilled, well-paid and rewarding careers while continuing to do the vital work they do every day for children and families”.
The early years teacher degree apprenticeship was approved for funding in January 2025 with the maximum funding band worth £27,000. There have been no starts since it was approved, and recruitment is currently paused as the apprenticeship does not have an end point assessment organisation (EPAO).
FE Week understands the government plans to approve an EPAO so apprentices can start the early years teacher apprenticeship this autumn.
Ministers hope the grants will be enough to incentivise early years businesses to upskill their staff to degree level amid concerns that the government’s “30 hours funded childcare” offer, launched in September last year, doesn’t cover the “real cost of delivery”.
Neil Leitch, CEO of the Early Years Alliance, commented: “We welcome news of this paid degree apprenticeship as a genuinely positive step towards supporting and strengthening the early years workforce.
“However, with the sector facing an unprecedented recruitment and retention crisis, the reality is clear: much more investment, recognition and defined career progression will be needed to build the stable, high-quality workforce that children truly deserve.”
The DfE argues the policy will raise education quality, citing research showing settings employing graduate-level staff achieve better child development outcomes.
A 10 percentage-point increase in settings employing a graduate is associated with around a 1.2 percentage-point rise in children reaching a good level of development, officials say.
The department’s analysis also suggests early years staff with degree-level qualifications typically earn £18 per hour, about £5.50 more per hour than those trained to A-level standard.
Government grants have been available for postgraduate teacher training apprenticeships in priority subjects since at least 2018.
The announcement comes at the end of this year’s national apprenticeship week and forms part of the government’s “best start in life” strategy, which includes a long-term ambition to have a graduate-level early years teacher in every setting.
Other announcements this week include a pilot apprenticeship brokerage to help “near-miss” applicants find alternative vacancies.
The call in this piece for greater investment and clearer career pathways in early years is spot on – and the same pressures are being felt all the way through to post-16 education and training. If we want a stable, high-quality and professional workforce at every stage of the learning journey, we need to apply that ambition consistently across the whole system.