Apprenticeships offer a chance to change someone’s life.
With an apprenticeship you get a wage coming in, skills developed and a career taking shape. That is why getting more young people into them matters so much.
As it stands, the apprenticeships system has strayed from its intended purpose of lifting young people up.
Apprenticeship starts have fallen across the board, with uptake for under 25s dropping by 40 per cent in the last decade. Fewer than half of new apprenticeships are currently taken up by young people, and when you dig into why, the same frustrations come up again and again.
The system is hard to navigate. The options aren’t clear. Some apprenticeships on offer don’t match where the economy is actually heading.
This comes at a time when nearly a million young people aged 16-24 aren’t in education, employment or training. That figure has been growing since 2022, and precisely the moment young people have needed opportunity more than ever, they have found the drawbridge being drawn up. We are unapologetic about changing this.
Young people want to work, and they want to have opportunities to earn or learn and start building their future. And that’s why we’re tilting the growth and skills levy towards youth, taking the difficult decisions about what standards to streamline, moving away from management and other lower priority standards.
There is nothing wrong with management training, it is of course of benefit to the economy. But it can’t come at the expense of a young person’s first opportunity in life, especially when there are so many other routes to getting that training. The public rightly expect apprenticeships to provide young people with a genuine route into skilled work and provide value for money.
Addressing this historic failure requires ambition to meet the scale of the challenge. That’s why we’re going to back employers that are stepping up to the plate, with new suite of hiring incentives, including for SMEs.
This is alongside the new foundation apprenticeships in hospitality and retail that will open up entry level routes for young people looking to get their foot in the door. Altogether, that means up to £8,000 of support available to the employer, depending on the circumstances of the young apprentice. It is a straightforward recognition that bringing someone into the workforce for the first time takes investment, and we want to make that easier.
But beyond opening more doors, we need those doors to lead somewhere worth going. We should reject the false choice that more opportunities for our young people must come at the expense of growth for our economy.
That’s why, taking advantage of the flexibility on offer with a reformed levy, Skills England has led the development of new short courses, called apprenticeship units, which meet needs as varied as AI, Solar panel installation and welding. This comes off the back of our announcement last month to ‘fast track’ approval of new standards that open up opportunities for young people and address skills gaps for critical infrastructure and major investment projects.
Early unemployment is not just an inconvenience. It can shape a person’s confidence and prospects for years. A job is good, but an apprenticeship offers the better route to progression. Young people deserve chances to gain skills, carve out a career and succeed in their chosen field.
Giving young people a genuine, navigable route into good work is one of the most important things we can do – for them, for the country and for the economy. And we can build a skills system that not only meets the needs of young people but also can adapt at pace to new innovations and developments like AI.
We are committed to making that happen. Young people cannot afford for us to let up until it does. And the country stands to win if we succeed.
Your thoughts