Top levy-funded apprenticeship providers for past 2 years reavealed

Lifetime Training has continued its dominance of the apprenticeship levy market for the past two years – but the gap between its competitors is closing, FE Week analysis of new government data shows.   

The Education and Skills Funding Agency this week published the final funding allocations for training providers in 2019/20 and 2020/21, which included the values for how much each provider was paid by apprenticeship levy funded employers.   

The agency published levy allocations for the first time in 2018/19. At the time, Lifetime Training topped the list after it was paid £51.5 million – almost double the next closest provider, QA Limited, on £26 million.   

Since then, Lifetime has retained its top spot, earning £50.6 million and £43.3 million in 2019/20 and 2020/21 respectively.   

Kaplan took second place in 2019/20 with £34.2 million, while the British Army took the position in 2020/21 with £38.4 million.   

The college with the largest amount of levy-funding in 2019/20 was The Sheffield College, which earned £5.3 million – placing it in 33rd place overall. Bridgwater and Taunton College took the top college spot in 2020/21 with £5.5 million – 40th place overall.   

The total amount of levy funding handed out in 2019/20 was £942.4 million, shared between 1,272 apprenticeship providers.   

This increased to £1.3 billion shared between 1,355 providers in 2020/21.