There was a miniscule rise in apprenticeship starts last year, including in the number of young people for the third consecutive year.
However, as level 2 apprenticeships declined further, starts on higher-level programmes continued to grow.
And Multiverse delivered the second-highest number of starts last year, jumping two spaces in the top 10 provider league table.
Here’s your roundup of full-year 2023/24 apprenticeships data.
Level 2s are half what they were
Overall apprenticeship starts were up a paltry 0.7 per cent compared to the previous year, representing an increase of 2,440 and bringing the total for 2023/24 to 339,580.
Although that seems small, it’s only the second time in five years that apprenticeship starts have increased.
Following the trend of previous years, declining intermediate-level starts were offset by the rising popularity of higher-level apprenticeships.
Six years ago, nearly two in five apprenticeship starts were at intermediate level. Now it is one in five. Higher-level apprenticeships made up 36 per cent of starts last year, up from 19 per cent six years ago.
The number of young people aged under 19 has crept up slightly for the third year in a row. There were 78,930 young starters last year, which was 23.2 per cent of the overall total, up 0.1 percentage points from 2022/23. While it’s not bad news, the proportion of young people starting apprenticeships has still not recovered from pre-pandemic levels.
Nearly 20,000 more young people started apprenticeships in 2018 than in 2023. Labour said it plans to reverse this decline by diverting spending from level 7 apprenticeships and introducing new foundation apprenticeships.
On the level
Stats for last year show small rises in apprenticeship starts at every level above level 3.
At level 7, 23,860 people started an apprenticeship last year, up from 21,760 the previous year. As a proportion, level 7 apprenticeships coincidentally made up 7 per cent of overall starts, up 0.5 percentage points.
But there was a near-2 percentage point drop in level 2 apprenticeships. The decline here over time is substantial. Over 20,600 fewer level two apprenticeship starts were made last year than two years ago.
Early years educator, a level 3 standard, was the most popular apprenticeship for the second year in a row overall with 15,300 starts.
Two level 7 apprenticeships, accountancy and senior leader, maintained their places in the top 10.
In fact, there were 1,000 more apprentice senior leaders in 2023/24 than the previous year. And new apprentice solicitors nearly doubled, from 780 starts in 2022/23 to 1,350 in 2023/24.
Ministers insist that if employers value these level 7 programmes, they will self-fund them when levy funding is removed.
For under 19s, the level 3 business administrator was again the most popular apprenticeship with 4,800 starts (down from 4,990 the year before). Early years educator, hairdressing professional and installation and maintenance electrician were the next most popular for young people.
Two-thirds independent
Independent training providers increased their market share of apprenticeship starts last year, now delivering over two-thirds (66.7 per cent).
Further education colleges saw their share drop slightly from 17.4 percent to 17.2 percent. Back in 2018/19, a quarter of apprenticeships were started by FE colleges.
Apprenticeship starts in the “other” category, which includes higher education institutions and local authorities, also dropped slightly; by one percentage point.
The proportion of starts in schools, sixth-form colleges and specialist colleges remained stable at 0.1 per cent, 0.1 per cent and 0.7 per cent, respectively.
There was also a consistent proportion of apprenticeships that were funded by the levy, 68 per cent, suggesting small and medium-sized businesses are still struggling to boost their numbers.
Into the Multiverse
Lifetime Training remained untouchable at the top spot in our analysis of overall starts by training provider. Even though they started 660 fewer apprentices than in 2022/23, the training giant still clocked up 16,330 last year.
Our analysis of training providers with the most apprentice starts last year shows Multiverse jumped from fourth to second, increasing their annual intake from 5,770 to 7,910.
Multiverse displaced the British Army, which dropped to third, and BPP Professional Education, which dropped to fourth.
Corndel climbed to fifth with 6,780 starts, 1,540 more than the year before.
The only new entry to the top 10 was Marr Corporation, placing tenth with 4,130 starts.
First and foremost, an apprenticeship is a job with training not training with some work experience or a college course.
It’s the employer who creates the job and decides who to hire, but this article feels as though it’s been written about learners participating on courses, not work based educational programmes.
“Back in 2018/19, a quarter of apprenticeships were started by FE colleges”. No… Taken literally this means that a quarter of apprentices are employed by Colleges.
I’m sorry FE Week, but this article is a largely meaningless salad of statistics. More precision and insight please, less tabloidesque vanilla.
All the non apprenticeship enrolment data also came out, but no reporting on that…
So taking the title of this article literally it clearly defined it as referring to market share for ITP, It is well balanced and on subject. I would say the salad data was informative and on par with the subject matter described in the title.
Anyone who knows apprenticeships would clearly understand the tri party arrangement i.e. employer apprenticeship and provider. Not a lot of room for misunderstanding unless you want to make one of course……