England’s apprenticeship budget was topped up with an extra £43.2 million halfway through this financial year, underscoring mounting financial pressures and intensifying the government’s drive to tighten control of the system.
Treasury documents published as “supplementary estimates” show the 2025-26 apprenticeship budget increased from £3.075 billion to £3.118 billion.
While the £43 million represents just a 1.4 per cent uplift, the mid-year adjustment reinforces warnings that the system is operating on increasingly fine margins. It follows the first-ever overspend of England’s apprenticeship budget in 2024-25.
As FE Week previously revealed, employer anxiety is growing over potential cuts to popular management training routes and progression pathways as ministers scramble to contain costs.
Level 7 apprenticeships have already been defunded for learners aged 22 and over from January. Further hard choices are expected, particularly as ministers expand levy flexibility to fund shorter courses under the rebadged growth and skills levy from April.
Imran Tahir, senior research economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said the government faces “a delicate balancing act” to keep the apprenticeship budget under control.
“In 2024-25 it was overspent for the first time, and it looks like the coming years will be challenging,” he told FE Week.
“The government has taken steps to rein in spending – most notably by restricting higher-level apprenticeships, which tend to be longer and more expensive. However, at the same time, ministers have broadened what levy funding can be used for as part of the growth and skills levy, which is likely to increase demand on the budget.
“Where the budget ultimately settles will matter, as further overspends would either require additional cash or force savings elsewhere.”
Treasury continues to retain sizeable share
The total volume of apprenticeship starts has remained static for the past four years, but the increased budget pressure has been caused by soaring numbers of higher-level apprenticeships that are more expensive to deliver than lower-level programmes.
The apprenticeship levy is forecast to generate £4.4 billion from employer contributions this financial year.
After around £500 million is distributed annually to the devolved nations, and with England’s revised 2025-26 apprenticeship budget now standing at £3.118 billion, the Treasury is effectively retaining an estimated £780 million difference between levy receipts and apprenticeship spending.
The government has refused to share what the total apprenticeship budget for 2026-27 has been set at.
Stephen Evans, chief executive of the Learning and Work Institute, said this year’s increase in the budget for England broadly tracks rising levy revenues but does not fundamentally change the wider picture.
“It’s good that the apprenticeship budget is increasing, though this is broadly in line with growth in the amount the levy raises; the Treasury is still keeping over £700 million of levy funds above what it spends,” he said.
Evans added that recent policy decisions – including limiting level 7 funding to younger learners and scrapping the 10 per cent top-up for levy payers – will reduce the risk of another overspend. But he warned this fiscal move alone would not reverse the decline in opportunities for young people at intermediate level.
“For that we need a growing economy, to limit the rising costs employers are facing, make it easier and provide more support to take on apprentices, and increase the incentives for employers to do this,” he said.
“Otherwise we risk a steady-as-she-goes approach focused on sticking to a budget rather than going for the growth that’s desperately needed when almost one million young people are NEET.”
November’s budget saw the chancellor announce an extra £725 million over the three remaining years of this Parliament to be injected into the apprenticeship system, but £140 million of this will be going to mayors to help connect NEETs to local employers.
Some of the additional cash will also go towards fully funding apprenticeships for under-25s in small and medium-sized businesses.
NIC relief bill surges
Separate Treasury figures show relief on employer national insurance contributions (NICs) for apprentices under 25 is projected to rise sharply – from £370 million in 2024-25 to £570 million in 2025-26.
Experts said they would be surprised if the foregone employer NICs subsidies for under-25 apprentices were counted against the apprenticeship budget as they are sufficiently distinct policy levers.
A Student Loans Company board member has been appointed its next chair.
Gary Page, who has served on the board of the SLC since 2020, will step up to the chair role on April 1. He succeeds Peter Lauener, who is about to complete his second and final three-year term as chair.
It comes as the government-owned body plans to modernise its systems ahead of post 18 education funding reforms, such as preparing to open applications for lifelong loan entitlement (LLE) funding for the first time this September.
Alongside his role on the SLC board, Page chairs Triodos Bank UK, is a lay member of the South East Employment Tribunal and is a trustee of the charity Hope After Suicide Loss UK.
The SLC paid out nearly £24 billion in further and higher education student finance UK-wide in 2023-24 and employs nearly 3,300 people. It’s one of Whitehall’s largest arms-length bodies, processing more than a million applications for student loans and grants per year and working with HMRC to collect repayments.
As chair, Page will be responsible for leading the board of six non-executive directors in holding senior managers to account over operational and financial performance. He is appointed by the ‘shareholders’ of the SLC, who are the education secretary and representatives of the devolved nations.
Education secretary Bridget Phillipson thanked Lauener for his “dedicated service” and said Page’s leadership experience would be “invaluable”.
Phillipson added: “I am confident he will provide the strong leadership needed to deliver a modern, efficient service for students across the UK, as the organisation undertakes an important transformation project.”
The eight-day per month role attracts remuneration of £59,000 per year.
Page described the timing of his appointment as “pivotal”.
He said: “I have enjoyed being a board member of SLC over the last five years, and it’s such a pivotal moment to be stepping into the role of chair. The organisation is a vital source of financial support in helping customers across the UK pursue their further and higher education ambitions, and I look forward to contributing to its continued success.”
Waltham Forest College principal Janet Gardner has announced that she will retire in August this year after six years in post.
Gardner, 55, said it is the “right time” to step down thanks to the north east London college’s “strong position” and to prioritise “important family caring responsibilities”.
She leaves the college with an across-the-board ‘outstanding’ Ofsted grade following an inspection in 2024 and an ‘outstanding’ financial health rating.
The college was in early financial intervention when Gardner took the top job in 2020.
In an announcement today, Gardner said: “Waltham Forest College is a truly special place, and I am extremely proud of everything we have achieved and that I will be leaving it in such a strong position, with a highly experienced board of governors, great leadership team and amazing staff.
“I have hugely enjoyed my time leading the college and I want to pay tribute to team forest for their professionalism and commitment to our college, to employers and community partners for their ongoing support, and to our students for all their hard work and dedication.”
Recruitment for a new principal has now started, with interviews planned at the end of March.
Chair of governors Paul Butler said Gardner is an “exceptional” leader who has made a “hugely positive” impact on the college and the people it serves.
He added: “She will leave the college in a very strong position, with an outstanding Ofsted grade and financial health rating, great student experience, a superb team of staff and robust partnerships with employers and our public sector partners.
“Janet’s drive for excellence will continue to be her key legacy for the board and senior team as we continue to serve our local communities. That is a phenomenal legacy.”
Gardner joined the college as principal after a career that included a deputy principal position at Newham College and jobs at several other London FE colleges.
Waltham Forest College has about 2,600 16 to 18-year-old students and about 4,400 adult learners attending its single campus in Walthamstow.
From revelation in Grimsby to tackling racism head-on in Sunderland, frontline nursing to testy mergers, Ellen Thinnesen’s unorthodox path to FE commissioner will undoubtedly shape how she does the role, writes Jessica Hill
If the new FE commissioner found a college employing a teacher for a whole year without pay, you can imagine her reaction.
But that is how Ellen Thinnesen started out in FE in her mid-thirties. A single mum-of-two, she’d moved back to England from the States, and badly needed work.
Now she has risen to the very top. Her role running the government’s college troubleshooter follows a decade as chief executive and principal of one of England’s largest college groups, Education Partnership North East (EPNE).
Thinnesen has a monumental task ahead. She must steer the accountability system through structural change, whilst supporting colleges rolling out reforms in the post-16 white paper.
She is setting out a mandate for the FE commissioner (FEC) to lead not just with the expectation of accountability and standards, but the values of “humanity and compassion” – ones that she holds dear.
A defining moment
Thinnesen started out as a nurse, and spent five years working in the USA. But life took a different turn when her marriage broke down. After five years in Columbus, Ohio, and Chicago, Illinois, she and her children moved in with her parents in North Yorkshire.
Waiting at the traffic lights one day in a car borrowed from her parents, Thinnesen looked across the road to Grimsby Institute. She had taken a health and social care course there a decade earlier.
“I need to go work there, because at least I’ll get the summer holidays,” she thought.
At first Thinnesen taught literacy to engineering students, and then an entire unit of an access to nursing course.
She worked for 12 months – unpaid. Is that legal? “It probably isn’t. I did that probably longer than I should have. But I loved it.”
Fortunately, paid work followed – teaching health and social care. She progressed quickly to leading departments, first in higher education and then quality.
Nursing lessons
Thinnesen’s dad was a fisherman. Her mum ran a charity supporting communities, mainly in Ukraine.
Occasionally accompanying her, Thinnesen recalls seeing “the most abject poverty”. She describes being similarly shaped by working in critical care, witnessing regularly “the fragility of the human spirit”.
She sees “huge similarities” between qualities she honed as a nurse, and those required leading in FE. require being patient-/learner- centred, decisive under pressure, resilient, collaborative and evidence- and risk-informed.
“When you’ve gone through a career in critical care, you never panic at anything.”
Words of wisdom from her predecessor
Thinnesen greets me in the lobby of one of her new workplaces, the Department for Education’s (DfE) Sanctuary Buildings HQ in London.
She then quickly dashes off to change out of her flat, comfy trainers into shiny black heels that more befit her style. She says she has always worn heels, being “from the North”.
Until now, at least. She has begun wearing flat shoes while travelling. Her predecessor Shelagh Legrave’s parting advice was that Thinnesen should look after her own wellbeing – as “the job requires a lot of travel”.
Thinnesen oversees four deputy commissioners, around 15 advisers, ten national leaders of FE (NLFEs) and 12 national leaders of governance (NLGs). The FEC has offices in Coventry, Darlington, Sheffield and London.
When asked her biggest flaw, Thinnesen admits: “It is very easy for me to work beyond the boundaries of a normal working day.”
But she is “always really mindful” of her own pace when working with others, and “moderating that to circumstance”.
Today however, she is tired. She is staying at her daughter’s home while working in London. Babysitting grandchildren last night meant a “terrible night’s sleep”.
Thinnesen is softly spoken, but precise. She cautiously refers to laptop notes when answering tricky questions – perhaps to avoid upsetting new government bosses.
There is now a new tier of support for colleges, on top of the ‘universal support’ the FEC provides to drive best practice.
New-look support for colleges
This is private ‘targeted support’, before colleges hit the threshold for formal intervention or a structure and prospects appraisal known as ‘intensive support’.
Targeted support is a “move away” from the “active support” programme introduced in December 2022. Under this new tier, colleges are supported by new regional improvement teams made up of “sector and industry experts” who have a “much broader remit” than DfE’s existing place-based teams, and “incorporate functions of [DfE’s] independent market oversight team”.
These teams include “civil servants, public officials and colleagues from MSAs [mayoral strategic authorities]”.
Thinnesen has aligned each of her deputy commissioners and advisors to these teams, and will do similarly with NLFEs and NLGs.
Some question the need for greater sector oversight, though. Just eight colleges have a live ‘notice to improve’, which triggers intervention. When her predecessor started in 2021, there were 23.
Thinnesen claims not to have picked up such concerns. The new targeted tier is aimed at reducing the number of colleges in intervention even further, although Thinnesen “can never guarantee that”.
“I would absolutely stress that college governors and senior leaders should engage with us early so we can work with you to prevent more intensive forms of support.”
The new teams will, she explains, “support and advise on improving individual college performance and building stronger collaborative systems across places, particularly in response to local skills priorities identified by a local skills improvement plan or the mayors”.
They will be “absolutely integral to my office.”
Ellen Thinessen, when she was CEO at Education Partnership North East
Enabling a self-supporting sector
Thinnesen sees her work as primarily about “enabling a self-supporting sector”.
But under the universal support offer, she is “likely to review and refocus” the Just One More Thing conferences introduced by Legrave. These see chairs, governance leads and principals share best practice.
The skills white paper calls for closer integration between colleges and universities. Thinnesen says her team will “definitely be working closely over time with the HE sector”. She wants to “create a space” for collaboration, and “shape what world-leading governance looks like”.
Thinnesen believes FE has a role supporting HE, or simply sharing “how the FE sector has navigated complexity and changed over the last several years, and the lessons learned”.
More to do to raise the bar on leadership
Others believe college governance still leaves a lot to be desired, though.
I put it to Thinnesen that recruiting high-calibre governors with sufficient experience and skills is challenging. She acknowledges “more to do in that space”, but is yet to take a view on pay for board chairs.
She wants colleges to improve governance through “approaches to risk and broad assurance frameworks, because no governing body should be over-reliant on one single leader”.
But she does not want leaders feeling in the firing line for their college’s problems.
“I’ve never used the word ‘blame’ in any of my career, and I know that no CEO sets out to find themselves in intervention.”
However, she acknowledges “more to do to raise the bar” on leadership.
The skills white paper pledged a new law to bar ‘unsuitable’ leaders. Does she think this is now much needed? Thinnesen will not be pinned down. “Ask me that question after a year in post.”
She points out existing laws already bar unsuitable people from running independent schools including academies, though. Having similar rules for FE providers “makes sense”.
Managing ‘incredibly complex’ mergers
Thinnesen had an impressive track record of improvement at EPNE, which went from ‘good’ to ‘outstanding’. But that has not always been the case in her career.
Seven months after she left Grimsby Institute to join Tameside College as assistant principal in March 2015, Tameside was downgraded from ‘good’ to ‘requires improvement’. It was, she says, experiencing “challenges particularly around curriculum quality”.
Thinnesen left Tameside College 10 months later, taking up the reins at Sunderland College. She led Sunderland’s merger with Hartlepool Sixth Form College in 2017, and another merger with Northumberland College that formed the EPNE group in 2019.
That “incredibly complex” merger proved the most challenging moment of her career, particularly as Covid began.
Northumberland had recently been put under intervention, following what the then- FEC described as a “major failing in financial management and oversight”. Leaders reportedly set “wholly unrealistic targets” for new levy apprenticeships and “over-optimistic” income targets.
Jobs were slashed under Thinnesen, who needed to “drive rapid and significant financial and quality turnaround and harmonisation”. She learnt “a huge, huge amount”.
Leading a large and complex merger and turnaround was the “defining feature” of her time leading in FE. It ended up “hugely helpful” preparation for her current role.
In 2022, she became an NLFE, supporting other leaders, either new or facing intervention.
Thinnesen says she has always had a “very human-focused element” to leadership. But the NLFE role brought the “human element of what it means to be a CEO more into focus”.
She learned how, for senior post holders at colleges undergoing intervention, it can feel “personal, hugely overwhelming and professionally very, very difficult”.
“Workload and pressure increase exponentially in an intervention and merger situation. It’s really important going forward that the system and the regulatory response to that situation is extremely well coordinated and doesn’t unnecessarily overburden, particularly the chief exec – who has a lot to contend with.”
The riots ‘accelerated our direction of travel’
Following the post-Southport riots, Thinnesen led EPNE’s response to improve community cohesion and race relations.
Thinnesen had witnessed her mixed-race son dealing with racism in both England and America.
“The fundamental bigotry and hate and racism that I saw in the riots almost felt like a calling to me.”
When the mayhem was over, and others remarked to Thinnesen that “we’ve gone back to normal”, her family experiences made her reflect: “Actually, your normal as a white, middle-class person is not the normal of others from very different backgrounds and diversities.”
The saga led EPNE’s leadership strategy to pivot. “It galvanised and accelerated our direction of travel, in probably a way that it might not have had those riots not happened.”
This sentiment is reflected in EPNE’s 2025-2030 strategic plan. Thinnesen writes in it that “in a world facing unprecedented change and growing issues of social justice, a deep understanding of purpose matters”.
EPNE’s name reflects its pledge not to take on new colleges outside the North East. Thinnesen believes colleges should be “deeply rooted in local communities”, playing a wider role “beyond the boundaries of their own campuses”.
“Increasingly and through really considered strategy, colleges need to focus on how they catalyse and galvanise engagement…within communities where residents probably would not in first instance go to a college, often due to barriers to opportunity.”
But expanding provision to meet community needs is “not necessarily about leasing lots of off-site premises and weakening liquidity”, she warns. “It’s certainly not about duplicating or weakening existing provision. It is about a systems approach to solving problems.”
“There is more to be done in that space.”
Help to intervene when young people disengage
On that front, Thinnesen is supportive of colleges subcontracting provision to independent training providers (ITPs) – provided it’s “done carefully”. There are some “amazing ITPs”, which are “key to tackling some of the challenges…we face within our communities”.
As for young people not in education, employment or training (NEET), Thinnesen is wary of treating them as a “homogenous entity”. Her own experience shows they come from “hugely varied backgrounds”.
Last year, colleges reported waiting lists for courses in all eight industrial strategy priority sectors, plus health and construction, an Association of Colleges (AoC) survey found. The overwhelming demand for such provision could be blocking pathways for NEETs.
Thinnesen says regional improvement teams will come in and look at the context of provision for NEETs, electively home educated young people and those with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) – and “hold dialogue with colleges”.
Thinnesen’s team is committed to improving transition from the post-16 sector. They will give colleges new “risk of NEET indicator tools”, and support monitoring attendance, so they can “intervene early when young people start showing signs of disengagement”.
Praise for leaders bringing authenticity and compassion
Thinnesen is particularly proud to have “always kept the learner at the heart of my thinking and decision making”. This can be “easy to forget” with “so many distractions” as a leader.
She made it her “absolute mission” to visit learners whenever she had an hour free, to “understand context and triangulate that to help inform my thinking and drive it through my strategy”.
“Many leaders will tell you they spend a lot of time in meetings. As chief exec, sometimes you have to be really disciplined about freeing up time to engage in meaningful ways with learners facing disadvantage.”
Thinnesen recalls how EPNE colleagues “put their heart and soul into leading success at a huge discretionary effort at times when they had really significant personal challenges in their home lives”.
Thinnesen’s eyes well up, and her voice cracks. “When I look back, it’s those people that I’m most proud of.”
Before leaving (to change back into her flats again), Thinnesen describes the leaders she admires most. It’s those who bring “authenticity and compassion to the table”.
Whether compassion can sit comfortably alongside intervention will be one of the defining tests of her tenure. But Thinnesen is clear about one thing: accountability, in her view, must never come at the expense of humanity.
Applications have opened for the government’s post-16 and construction capacity funding grants, as the Department for Education (DfE) has promised a “decade of national renewal” through a new education estates strategy.
The government has budgeted £570 million for post-16 capital investment, between 2026-27 and 2029-30, including both capacity and construction skills-focused funds.
A total of £287 million from this pot will be contracted nationally by the Department for Education and opened for bids yesterday from colleges, designated institutions and 16 to 19 academies in non-devolved areas.
Meanwhile, the government has also published its national education estates strategy, which includes a new renewal and retrofit programme worth an extra £710 million between 2026 and 2030.
The new strategy pledges to give colleges greater long-term certainty on capital investment and to reduce competitive bidding through more regular data sharing with the DfE.
Education secretary Bridget Phillipson said the plan will bring an end to colleges and schools being forced to “patch and mend” buildings that have already deteriorated.
She added: “This is about more than buildings – it’s about breaking down barriers to opportunity. Every child deserves to learn in a safe, accessible environment, with the right facilities to meet their needs and help them thrive.”
The FE sector is facing a population bulge in 16 to 18 students, with numbers estimated to have swollen by 230,000, or 13 per cent, between 2017 and 2024 and to rise by another five per cent, or 110,000, by 2028.
Details of the capacity funding were welcomed by Julian Gravatt, deputy chief executive at the Association of Colleges, who said: “Colleges across the country have the expertise and ambition to deliver large numbers of quality courses in high-demand areas like construction, but over the past few years have struggled with the funding and resource to do so, with some having to turn potential students away.
“The £570 million budget for capital projects will go a long way to address the issue, ensuring colleges can expand their facilities.”
Capacity funds
DfE guidance published yesterday, which applies to non-devolved areas, sets out its expectations for bidding for both £191 million in post-16 capacity funding and £96 million in construction skills capacity funding.
The amounts available from individual bidders both funds are at least £250,000 and at most £5 million, although this could be higher “where there is sufficient evidence of need”.
A total of 18 mayoral combined authorities and councils with devolution deals will separately receive £184 million in post-16 capacity funding and £99 million for construction skills capacity funding. However, the Greater London Authority has not been awarded any funding for post-16 capacity.
To help with applications to the national pot, the DfE also published Office for National Statistics projections for non-devolved areas showing that in peak years, usually 2028 or 2029, some local authorities are expecting 16 to 17-year-old population growth of up to 19 per cent, or 900 people, per year.
Overall, the funding plans have been welcomed by the college sector, with Sixth Form College Association (SFCA) deputy chief executive James Kewin saying many of his members are “bursting at the seams”.
He added: “These new funds are very welcome and we expect them to be heavily oversubscribed.
“It remains to be seen how the funds operate in devolved areas – we hope that strategic authorities ensure that all providers types have the opportunity to create additional places as soon as possible.”
It follows the DfE’s release of £10 million in emergency post-16 capacity funding to both the Greater Manchester Combined Authority and Leeds City Council last year, which is forecast to create around 9,000 extra college places once projects such as leasing buildings and classroom refurbishments are complete.
How to win
Bidders to the DfE’s post-16 capacity fund must show their projects are needed “as a direct result” of demographic increases in learners and be designed to accommodate at least 31 additional 16 to 19 year-old learners.
The three “likely” types of project that will win funding are those that reconfigure the estate, increase size temporarily through leasing or purchases, or building or buying new space.
Permanent new build projects or land purchase projects are “unlikely” to meet spend deadlines or value for money requirements due to the “short term nature” of the population budge and risk of creating “surplus” post-16 places.
Construction capacity funding comes with several conditions including securing employer support and winning bids being for a designated construction technical excellence college or one of their “spoke” collaborators.
They must also demonstrate that projects will address construction waiting lists, accommodate learners from 2026 onwards, and that there are “no alternative solutions”.
Applications opened on February 10 and close on April 17, with outcome notifications in July.
New national strategy
The DfE’s 10-year national estates strategy promises to “turn the page on years of neglect” through a new retrofit and renewal programme, a national standard for FE colleges and improved data collection.
Between 2026 and 2030, the £710 million retrofit and renewal programme will aim to help colleges and schools with “significant condition projects”, resilience to climate change, access to nature and decarbonising the estate.
A new digital service ‘manage your education estate’ will be launched this month that will bring together estates guidance, data, and communication with the department.
The department will develop an estate management standard for FE colleges by summer this year and pilot increased data collection and sharing that will help target future funding “without the need for full bids”.
Other plans include “pathfinder” pilots of more flexible use of surplus spaces on the education estate and private finance investment in solar and energy efficiency.
One of the most positive updates this year has been the increase in government funding for SMEs. Smaller, non‑levy paying businesses can now receive 100 per cent funding for apprentices aged 16–24. For small firms, which make up so much of the UK’s business sector, this is a major boost. Without considering other factors, it makes the investment in new talent more affordable.
Shorter minimum durations for learners with prior experience, and the removal of mandatory English and maths requirements for adult learners, have also been positive, making apprenticeships more flexible, more inclusive and better aligned with real workplace needs.
But not all changes have been positive. I’ve made no secret about my concerns over the future of apprenticeships, given the various policy and funding reforms announced last year. With a potential reduction and general confusion around the quality and rigour of assessments, we risk stepping back to the days before the Richard Review in 2012, when apprenticeships, and (unfairly) apprentices, were poorly perceived. And with the volume and speed of changes being demanded, we risk a loss of confidence to invest, from both employers and education institutions. This is compounded by other mis-aligned fiscal policies hitting employers. It is worrying to see this play out recently. Apprenticeship starts for entry level programmes are slowing more and more, and these once brought the biggest numbers into the system.
What AAT members think
The 2025 Autumn Budget delivered some welcome changes. But without a stronger long-term plan for apprenticeships, the UK risks missing the chance to develop the next wave of talent. Year after year, employers tell us that apprenticeships work. But what’s missing is a system that makes it easier and more affordable for employers to show commitment to their significant role.
That’s why in the year ahead, collaboration between government, professional bodies and employers will be essential. Our Filling the Gap report clearly showed that businesses want an apprenticeship system that is simpler to navigate, more flexible and better aligned with the way of all ages, start and grow their careers. Strengthening that system and ensuring it works for learners must remain a priority. And something that should be created together with those designing, implementing and assuring those programmes.
Skills England will be crucial in making all this work. Streamlined assessment plans, proportionate end‑point assessments, and clear, steady guidance would make the system far easier for employers and learners to navigate – but these changes must all be communicated clearly and with sufficient notice.
Apprenticeships create leaders, and SMEs are where it starts
If you want proof that apprenticeships work, just look at the people they produce. Our president, Lucy Cohen, began her journey as an AAT apprentice before co‑founding Mazuma, a multi‑million‑pound accountancy firm. Today, she represents members and SMEs across one of the UK’s largest professional bodies. Her story shows that apprenticeships aren’t a second choice, they’re a launchpad for impactful leaders, entrepreneurs, and well-rounded professionals.
AAT need to walk the walk too. This year we welcomed three new apprentices into our teams, and that’s in addition to the five who were already working through their apprenticeships with us. With apprentices now covering a variety of roles across our business, we not only feel the challenges of an employer, but we see exactly how they deliver value day to day. I’m looking forward to sitting down with them during National Apprenticeship Week, to highlight their role in our own business.
Policy needs to keep up with the future
National Apprenticeship Week is a chance to celebrate progress, but also to recognise what still needs to be done. For apprenticeships to reach their full potential, government, employers, and providers must work together to keep learner and employer outcomes front and centre. When that happens, apprenticeships become more than training programmes. They become a way to grow talent, strengthen businesses, and build the skilled workforce the UK needs now and for the future.
The first few months of rolling out foundation apprenticeships were always going to expose the pressure points in a system still finding its feet. Early numbers don’t indicate a programme is failing. They reveal where policy must now evolve to meet the realities employers and young people face.
Foundation apprenticeships are level 2 programmes for people aged 16 to 21, or up to 24 if the person has an education, health and care plan, is a care leaver or has been in prison.
They have been launched at a time when the numbers of those not in education or employment (NEET) has reached the highest level in over a decade.
Our feedback from employer partners is that young people consistently lack work-ready skills. With a report by The King’s Trust finding that almost half (48 per cent) of young NEETs feeling unconfident they will be able to find a stable job in the future, foundation apprenticeships are vital in that they provide real-world experience, structured support and employability skills development. However, our early engagement with employers across retail, hospitality and care found the current model lacks the clarity, flexibility and alignment required, which may go some way to explaining the sluggish start.
Early data shouldn’t push government or industry backwards, though. Instead, it’s a signal: refine the model, sharpen the offer.
Employers still face many barriers
Frontline sectors like care face a myriad of challenges. Businesses are juggling inflation, mentoring, compliance and operational demands.
Meanwhile, in sectors such as data and digital the pressures are different, but just as significant. For example, technology is evolving at a rapid pace. The advent of artificial intelligence (AI) means firms are increasingly hesitant to hire young talent until they have certainty on how their competencies can map to future skills needs.
In addition, employers believe that the assessment system is still not clearly defined, especially given ongoing reform across the broader apprenticeship assessment framework. Clear, consistent national guidance is imperative on expectations, evidence requirements and how employability competencies should be judged.
Funding is also a barrier. Employers receive incentive payments of up to £2,000 for hosting foundation apprentices, on top of the existing £1,000 payment businesses receive for 16 to 18-year-old apprentices.
Yet this level can fall short of the real cost of onboarding people who need intensive early support. In the care sector, for example, employers must invest significant time before a learner can meaningfully contribute. Arguably, without additional onboarding support such as supervision stipends or wage co-investment, employer hesitation will remain.
And while the chancellor announced £820 million to fund a “youth guarantee”, this doesn’t cover 16–17-year-olds – for whom this support could be critical and act as a preventative measure to alleviate the NEET crisis.
The levy system has historically been plagued by large amounts of unspent funds. Following the autumn Budget, employers will have half the time to spend this money.
Unless the reformed growth and skills levy explicitly ring-fences or prioritises entry-level routes, and clarifies how funds can support onboarding, employers will continue to view them as high-risk, high-cost propositions.
Clear, practical levy rules are essential to convert unspent resources into real opportunities for young people, especially 16–17-year-olds outside the youth guarantee who rely entirely on employer willingness to take them on.
Eight-month courses are too long
Our research with employer partners found different sectors need different approaches and models. One size doesn’t fit all. For example, care needs emotionally ready learners and a faster gateway to level 2 once competencies are safe.
An eight-month course is too long for many businesses. I have heard the same question asked by many: Why would we recruit a young person for eight months and then put them onto a level 2, without reducing the duration of a level 2?
For fast-paced sectors like digital, where operational pressures move faster, eight months can feel misaligned, becoming a bottleneck rather than a bridge. To make foundation apprenticeships viable, the reformed levy must enable genuine flexibility: shorter on-boarding, modular units and competency-based progression that lets employers advance learners as soon as they are ready, not according to an arbitrary time requirement.
If the government is serious about tackling youth unemployment, it must work with employers to assess what is and isn’t working – and look beyond the statistics to ensure foundation apprenticeships truly deliver on their promise.
At the end of last year, the government announced a major investment aimed at increasing apprenticeship starts for young people and better aligning skills training with local job opportunities.
While this may sound positive on paper, for construction employers it is unlikely, on its own, to shift the dial.
The reality is that construction’s skills shortage cannot be solved by school leavers alone. Upskilling the next generation is vital.
But an approach that only prioritises younger entrants risks overlooking a large pool of motivated, capable people who want to retrain, reskill or change careers later in life.
Policy focuses too much on under-25s
Construction relies on a skilled workforce that can respond to changing project demands. Yet the apprenticeship system often struggles to reflect this reality. The core barrier is not training quality, but the risk placed on employers operating on low margins and with poor pipeline visibility.
Recent policy initiatives have been focused on under-25s, with routes such as T Levels largely pitched at school leavers. While these pathways still have a role to play, they do little to support experienced adults who want to transition into construction, or employers seeking lower-risk, job-ready entrants.
For many employers, the absence of targeted support for older apprentices makes it even harder to justify investment, even when there is a clear skills need. As a result, the system unintentionally excludes a group that could improve productivity and workforce stability.
Mature apprentices bring more ‘soft skills’
Research by recruitment company Michael Page shows that the most common age for a career change is 31. Those in their late 20s, 30s and beyond bring transferable skills, workplace maturity and a strong understanding of what they want from their next role.
In a high-risk sector like construction, mature apprentices often pose less risk. They typically have a stronger awareness of safety and site discipline, reducing the likelihood of accidents and early attrition.
Mature apprentices bring valuable transferable skills, communication, reliability, problem-solving and teamwork. These are commonly labelled “soft skills”, but some of the hardest to master and among the most critical skills on site.
Apprenticeships give these individuals a structured route into construction, and the chance to explore new roles and learn practical skills on the job without starting from scratch. It allows employers to access capability, not just potential.
How to fix the system
To transform apprenticeships into a genuine workforce solution, the system must move beyond one-size-fits-all policies. Supporting young people into construction should remain a priority, but incentivising employment, rather than penalising employers, is essential.
That means reducing administrative burdens, introducing clearer and more flexible funding incentives, and recognising the true cost and risk employers carry. Without reform to construction procurement, where contracts often prioritise the lowest price over quality and good employment practices, apprenticeship policy will continue to fall short.
Crucially, apprenticeships must be positioned as a lifelong pathway, not a scheme tied to age brackets. Only then can the notion that apprenticeships work for every generation be realised.
Change can ensure homes and key infrastructure get built
Construction faces ambitious targets, from housing delivery to public sector infrastructure, at a time when skilled labour is increasingly hard to secure. Meeting those challenges requires a broader, more inclusive approach to training.
Apprenticeships cannot be viewed solely as a route for the young. They must support people at every stage of life – and employers at every stage of the economic cycle.
By embracing a multi-generational model, policymakers and employers alike can help create a more resilient, experienced and diverse workforce – one capable of supporting the long-term health of the construction sector.
Motherhood and apple pie. The NHS and nurses. Babies and kittens. Lifelong love and long lie-ins. I’ve yet to meet anyone who would raise a word against any of these things or organise a concerted campaign objecting to their ongoing existence. Teaching the whole person, encouraging life-long learning, inspiring success, building resilience and preparing for later life. Such educational statements of aim are so anodyne as to be bland, yet so universal that any school or college who decided against them, proclaiming that from now on they would not encourage learning, care or create a safe environment, would immediately have Ofsted smashing in SAS-style through classroom windows.
To question their utility is nothing short of heresy. Yet most teachers are probably puzzled by the exalted status mission statements are given, divorced from classroom realities. Those who mutter darkly about such statements being symptoms of a deep managerialism infecting education ensure there are no written records traceable back to them. Instead they deny everything, smile and nod, stand upright hand-on-heart as all pledge eternal allegiance to our guiding star mission statement.
Every organisation seems to have needed one since they came to the fore in the 1980s business world. Gone are the days when a shop’s mission was simply to sell things and a school’s or college’s was to teach. Now we must be educating the whole person, helping create informed future citizens in a safe and supportive community environment. Otherwise how would they ever know what they’re supposed to be doing with their day?
Research into the real usefulness of mission statements in education is remarkably scant, despite their shibboleth status. In a 2021 review by David Coker of mission statements in what we would call the state secondary sector in America, he concluded that mission statements were “largely unknown” by employees, yet organizations were “unwavering in their beliefs on unrequited value”. There was no evidence they had any meaningful impact on results.
Coker conceded that successful schools often had unity of purpose amongst both staff and students. But a mission statement only reflected this; it did not bring it into being.
Consultants and theorists analysing successful colleges notice that where unity of purpose seems to be present there are attempts to replicate this in other situations, articulated in collaboratively created mission statements. Such statements then quickly become emblematic, apparent levers to be pulled in achieving success. But this is a confusion of causality and correlation, a fundamental academic fallacy.
What is it we think we are doing in writing a mission statement? Those who know often say the debate is key, helping foster a unity of purpose. But then the end-result is largely irrelevant; it is the creation of a shared vision that counts. So after the composition process, one could really dispense with the statement.
But in reality statements tend to be articulated at the top then passed down from above, products of discussions in the boardroom, ready-written when presented to classroom staff (who may be symbolically consulted). They are thus decreed from on high as if by prophetic pronouncement.
Providing a vision statement to people who haven’t shared the process of producing it will not bring discernible profit. People will not generally be suddenly struck blind at the brightness of the vision simply because it has been written.
So important is The Statement that sometimes every department is required to write a related mission sub-statement of its own. Time is set aside for it, with meetings or training days allocated and even consultants employed. Maybe the department might display their new statement proudly on their classroom walls, printed out on paper in brightly coloured font (stone tablets are harder to find these days). Their fate is then subject to the phenomenon of familiarity blindness. After a while they stop being noticed.
Still the process continues with all the logic of trickle-down economics. From departmental mission statements there even come hydra-like individual mission statements of a sort in the ubiquitous performance management processes which still hold sway in most of our schools and colleges, who are invariably years behind the latest thinking on such matters in business.
But once all these mission statements have been written to satisfy managerial demands and fired back up to line-managers, who tick the spreadsheet off as done, then what? If a mission statement were rewritten every year, tilted slightly each time like a hand tapping on a tiller to adjust direction, there might be a usefulness to them.
In the real world people act on their own sweet reasons, pure and tainted. Some teachers are driven by very clear personal or social missions. Some simply love their subjects. Some care deeply about their students. Some less so. That is as it ever was and as it ever will be, mission statement or not. Where those personal purposes overlap is our common vision. Articulating that is a slippery fish and probably largely a waste of time.
