Kaplan Financial Ltd remains the biggest earning apprenticeship provider despite recording less than a third of the number of starts of a competitor.
Department for Education figures published this week revealed the finance giant generated £51.7 million from levy and non-levy-funded apprenticeships in 2022-23.
Moving up to second place was QA Ltd, which rose three positions from the year before with total revenue of £47.5 million compared to £35.3 million in 2021-22.
Kaplan recruited 5,610 apprentices in 2022-23 and QA enrolled 4,690 – but both were dwarfed by Lifetime Training’s 16,990 starts.
While Lifetime cemented its position as market leader in terms of sheer volume, the provider was the third highest for revenue, generating £45.2 million (full table below).
Kaplan and QA mainly offer apprenticeships that attract higher funding bands than Lifetime. Three quarters of Kaplan’s apprentices are on the level 7 accountancy or taxation professional standard, which attracts maximum funding of £21,000. QA’s apprenticeships are mostly in IT and business, administration and law at advanced and higher levels.
Lifetime Training’s delivery is focused on hospitality, retail and adult care, with many apprenticeships at level 2.
All three providers are judged ‘good’ by Ofsted.
Notably, Multiverse Group Limited, the rapidly growing tech-driven apprenticeship provider founded by Tony Blair’s son Euan Blair, moved up to fourth in the provider earnings rankings.
Founded in 2016 it earned £44.1 million from apprenticeships in 2022-23, up by a huge 54 per cent from £28.7 million in 2021-22 following a shift to higher level programmes.
Multiverse continues to attract national media attention, with a string of outlets reporting this week that the company’s expansion into America and artificial intelligence had boosted turnover but increased losses to £60.5 million.
BPP Professional Education Limited, another major player in the professional services training sector with a large proportion of its apprenticeships being level 7, rounds out the top five.
The government announced in September it would be asking employers to fund a “significant” number of level 7 apprenticeships themselves, outside of the apprenticeships budget or levy-funded growth and skills offer.
A final decision on which level 7s are in and which are out of scope of levy funding will be made in “due course”, the DfE said this week.
Both BPP Professional and Kaplan Financial are likely to be significantly impacted by the move.
Making up the top 10 in the earnings table in 2022-23 was Corndel Ltd and JTL, alongside public sector bodies of the British Army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force, whose presence in the rankings highlights the importance of apprenticeships in military training.
The Open University was the highest earning university, placing 11th with £19.8 million, while the college that generated the most from apprenticeships in 2022-23 was Bridgwater and Taunton College, placing 30th with £11.3 million.
Is it really surprising that the accountancy world has taken advantage of the apprenticeship system to allow those getting the equivalent of a Master degree to do it without the inconvenience of student loans or firms avoiding having their training budgets dented?
Is there a link between the UK being awash with highly qualified tax professionals and the super rich paying less tax (as a proportion of earnings) than PAYE employees, or taxable income being redirected to low tax threshold countries?
What is the relationship between the ever growing tax code (5,000 pages long in 1995, 10,000 in 2010 and over 20,000 pages now) and the number of accounts required?
Lifetime trainings’ 40% achievement rate doesn’t look to clever either, though they managed an Ofsted ‘good’ when it was 35%…