Level 7 apprenticeships spiked 345% in final two months

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.

Senior leading the way

As expected, the sharpest increases in level 7 apprenticeship starts continued on the controversial senior leader standard. Today’s figures showed over 5,000 more apprentice senior leaders starting programmes in the five months leading up to the funding cut-off, 9,624 up from 4,264, compared to the previous year.

The pre-funding withdrawal rush on this apprenticeship, which attracts up to £14,000 in funding per apprentice, was particularly acute.

November saw 2.4 times more starts than the year before (3,043 up from 1,271), and December’s starts were 12 times higher than the year before (3,395 up from 274).

It means senior leader starts more than doubled in the months leading up to funding withdrawal, shooting up by 126 per cent.

But there was a larger jump, albeit with smaller volumes, in the senior people professional apprenticeship. Starts tripled in the run up to January, from 473 in 2024-25 to 1,321 in 2025-26, a 179 per cent increase.

For the accountancy and tax professional apprenticeship, the second most popular level 7 after senior leader, starts were up 32 per cent year on year between August and December.

Professional rush

Analysis broken down by individual training providers reveals the extent to which some companies rapidly expanded their level 7 intakes by hundreds of learners.

Specialist accountancy training provider Kaplan Financial recruited 2,954 level 7 apprentices between August and December 2025, 726 more than over the same period the year before – a 33 per cent increase.

BPP Professional Education also grew their level 7 offer over the period. Their senior leader starts grew from 71 over the whole of 2024-25 to 144 in the first five months of this year. BPP also recorded 190 senior people professional apprentices in the five months before funding was removed, compared to 164 in the whole of 2024-25. 

Other examples of training providers that beat, or nearly beat, their annual total for level 7 apprenticeships in the months preceding defunding include QA, Knowledgebrief, Best Practice Network and University of Reading.

Market entrants

FE Week analysis found 19 training providers began delivering level 7 apprenticeships for the first time in the run up to the funding cut off. 

Tend Training entered the market clocking up its first 480 starts across all levels between August 2025 and January 2026. Of those, 188 level 7 senior leaders were started before the funding dried up.

Just IT Training, Manchester Metropolitan University and The Opportunity Provider each recorded over 100 starts on senior leader or senior people professional apprenticeships between August and December despite not delivering them before. Others with smaller first-time entries over that period included Peabody Trust (21 senior leaders), Bournemouth University (15 solicitors) and Mary Hare (13 teachers for the sensory impaired).