Starts on level 7 apprenticeships rocketed 345 per cent in the final two months before funding was switched off for people aged over 21 – amounting to nearly 10,000 more than the previous year, new figures reveal.
Ministers controversially axed funding for the highest level apprenticeships from this January in a bid to divert resources away from executive training and towards opportunities for dwindling numbers of younger apprentices.
Stats released today covered apprenticeship starts for the first two quarters of this academic year, August 2025 to January 2026.
Starts over both quarters combined increased by over 50 per cent in the lead up to the withdrawal of funding. There were 26,200 level 7 starts between August 2025 and January 2026, a 51.9 per cent increase on the same period the previous year.
It means level 7 starts represented 11.6 per cent of all starts reported for 2025-26. At this point in 2024-25, they made up 8.5 per cent of all starts.
But level 7 starts began rocketing, particularly on the senior leader and accountancy standards, since September 2024, when the government first announced it would remove public funding from level 7. Ministers confirmed in May 2025 that funding for level 7 apprenticeships for those aged 22 and over would be removed from January 2026.
Soaring starts
These figures, which are provisional and can increase as training providers submit further data returns, reveal the extent of the rush on level 7 starts piling pressure on the stretched apprenticeship budget.
Increases were modest in the first quarter of this academic year; 7 per cent in August, 10 per cent in September and 15 per cent in October.
But starts soared in quarter 2, increasing by 123 per cent in November and 845 per cent in December, the final month public funding was available.
In volumes, this means there were 7,576 level 7 starts in December 2025 compared to 802 in December 2024.
In January, once funding was removed for new level 7 apprentices aged 22 and above, starts dropped by 93 per cent from 3,106 in 2024 to 207 in 2025.
More to follow
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