Skills England has published the first batch of apprenticeships that will be revised through the government’s controversial new assessment approach.
Ten sectors spanning 93 standards have been selected, with the most (28) in engineering and manufacturing followed by health and science (26).
New guidance on how to change apprenticeship assessment plans following the 2025 “apprenticeship assessment principles” has also been released today.
The reforms involve ditching the end-point assessment model introduced in 2017, introducing “sampling” of knowledge and skills, a stronger role for mandatory qualifications in some standards and removing independent assessment of behaviours.
A previous FE Week investigation uncovered discontent from the first five pilots of reformed assessment plans, and alarm that Skills England was “bulldozing” through changes without properly consulting and listening to employers and sector experts.
Skills England plans to plough through assessment reform for the 700-strong suite of apprenticeships in England during 2026, with a target end date of August 1 for getting all apprenticeships started on the process.
Here is the full list of the first 93 standards to go through the process:
Skills England has also revealed that it will convene a taskforce for the construction sector to discuss specific concerns about the reforms – and released a list of 40 standards that will be prioritised for assessment reforms once the issues are fixed.
The agency said: “The construction sector has given us a clear message during the assessment reforms pilot about the need to review the content of apprenticeships, and to implement policy in ways that take account of evolving industry requirements. This has shown us that more work is needed to make sure we can deliver positive change for employers and learners.
“To tackle that, we are bringing together a task force including representatives of industry, regulators and others. This will help us to make sure important construction industry requirements and changes within the sector, such as the Building Safety Act, are fully reflected in the underlying occupational standards, and the task force will also help determine any further solutions that support the successful implementation of improvements to assessment in construction and the built environment.”
This expert group will also support Skills England to set a timetable for assessment changes that “work for the construction sector”.
The agency added: “As a result, we are not expecting to commence any immediate work to apply apprenticeship assessment reforms to the construction apprenticeships at this stage. However, we are publishing this list now, to give an indication of which apprenticeship assessments will be prioritised for reform, once the task force’s work is complete.”
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