Apprenticeship reform will serve young people, our communities and the planet

Apprenticeships should be a bridge from education into work, giving young people skills and a path to secure employment. But for some young workers they’ve become just another broken promise, and in some cases, helped provide employers with a conveyor belt of cheap workers. 

Apprenticeships should allow the training of a highly skilled future workforce, which will be central to the worker’s climate transition and the building of the green industries we desperately need. The shift to a net-zero and low carbon economy will depend immensely on a workforce equipped with the technical and practical expertise to make it happen. And many young people would jump at the chance to take on a secure, well-funded, apprenticeship in developing green industries.  

So, what’s the problem?  

Under the last Conservative government, the number of new apprenticeship starters fell dramatically. New TUC analysis published for Young Workers Month shows that start rates dropped by 26% for under 19s and 15% for 19-24 years from 2017/18 to 2023/24. While new starter numbers fell, dropout rates rose, and the quality of work and training for so many of our apprentices was simply not up to scratch. Completion rates were low - with the achievement rate falling by 44% for under 19s, and by 31% for 19-24-year-olds in the same period - and many programmes were not providing suitable training in the skills need and sustainable progression, undermining apprenticeships as a guaranteed route to skilled employment. 

It’s hardly surprising that many apprentices drop out or struggle to complete their courses, many are employed on almost unliveable wages while receiving less and less quality off-the-job training alongside their work. Research from the Sutton Trust shows that UK apprentices get much less off-the-job training per week than other countries, while also receiving a much higher proportion of online training compared to face-to-face training than other countries. Apprentices in Germany can get up to twice as much weekly training, while apprentices taking four-year trade courses in Ireland get 40 weeks of off-the-job education and training. 

While many smaller employers can’t afford to take on apprentices, larger companies have often found ways to spend money from the Apprenticeship levy (now the Growth and Skills levy) on processes that don't match up with the original intention, such as training existing managers and employees with higher levels of skills and experience. TUC analysis revealed over half (54 per cent) of levy-paying employers have admitted to rebranding existing in-house training as apprenticeships. The current setup of the apprenticeship system encourages some employers to game the system whilst not benefiting the very people the levy was designed to support.  

Low wages and lack of post-apprenticeship employment security also puts off many young people from going down the apprenticeship route in the first place. At a time when almost a million young people aged 16 - 24 are out of education, employment and training, fixing the crisis in the apprenticeship system will require ensuring necessary supply of good, quality jobs for qualified apprentices to enter into, addressing the wider issues in the youth job market, as well as providing the urgently needed skills and jobs to build our green industries and deliver a worker’s climate transition. 

What reforms are needed? 

Trade unions are spearheading demands to rebuild our apprenticeship system, while ensuring that our organising includes demands for greater worker control of training, pay and progression for apprentices. Training must lead to permanent work with secure contracts and trade union rights and recognition wherever possible, not a revolving door of short-term placements that leave young workers unsure of their future.  

Earlier this year, the government’s Growth and Skills Levy replaced the existing Apprenticeship Levy and includes new foundation apprenticeships. In addition, the government has committed to increase spending on Further Education by £1.2 billion per year by 2028/29. 

To ensure successful apprenticeship delivery the Government should also provide additional funding for a major expansion in apprenticeship numbers and training, including in emerging green industries. This could be funded is by widening the number of employers that pay into the Growth and Skills Levy, which currently applies to just 2% of employers. 

We must call for a massive increase in the number of apprenticeship or training places, without funding hinging entirely on the good-will of employers, while also cracking down on misuse of levy funds. The scrapping of the “apprentice rate” of pay or equalising it with the National Living Wage regardless of apprentice age should be central to union campaigns, as well as additional support for travel and accommodation subsidies, and access to student discounts for apprentices.       

Apprentices should have a full package of rights from day one, including relating to union rights, pay, and training conditions. Normalising apprentice union reps in organised workplaces will also help tackle the youth representation issue within trade unions, where a great number of workplace reps are retiring in the coming decade.  

Across the country, young workers are organising for better working conditions and pay, while taking the fight to bad bosses and insecure contracts. Young workers don’t just want to see the Government tinkering with the apprenticeships levy, we want a recognition that education, training, and work should serve society over profits, and help us build the green economy we need for our future. 

The climate transition must include worker and trade union participation. Apprenticeships will be a core element of this transition, both for training the future workforce, and retraining workers from carbon-intensive industries, into new, skilled, green jobs which will benefit communities.  

Aspects of the current system are both unsustainable and exploitative. Trade unions played a critical role in building the first apprenticeship systems in this country - and we can do it again.