The following statistics are classified as official statistics and have been produced in line with the Code of Practice for Statistics, rather than being classed as national statistics and approved as such by the United Kingdom Statistics Authority.
This analysis has been included to provide wider contextual information on the apprenticeship programme as a whole.
Apprenticeship incentive payments (UPDATED 22 DECEMBER 2021)
The government introduced new incentive payments in August 2020 to support employers in creating new apprenticeship opportunities. Employers are eligible to apply for this incentive for each apprentice they hire as a new employee to their organisation.
Employers who hired new apprentices between 01 August 2020 and 31 March 2021 were eligible for £2,000 for new apprentices aged 16 to 24 or £1,500 for apprentices aged 25 and over. In March 2021, the Chancellor announced an increase to the incentive payment, with employers eligible for £3000 for each apprentice, of any age, they hire as a new employee between 01 April and 30 September 2021. The closing date for incentive claims for this initial scheme extension was 30 November 2021.
In October 2021, the Chancellor announced a further extension of the incentive payment programme to 31 January 2022. Applications for these latest payments open on 11 January 2022.
The incentive is paid in two equal payments. Employers will be eligible for 50% of the incentive payment 90 days after the apprentice starts in training, with the remaining amount paid once the apprentice has completed 365 days of training.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/incentive-payments-for-hiring-a-new-apprentice (opens in a new tab)
As of 08 December 2021, the number of apprentices recorded on the Apprenticeship Service for whom incentive claims have been submitted by employers totalled 161,810:
- The number of apprenticeship service accounts who made the submissions for incentive payments was 54,470.
- The proportion of the submissions for those aged between 16 and 24, and 25 or over are 78% and 22% respectively (Table 1).
- The proportions by apprenticeship level (Table 2):
- Intermediate (level 2) accounted for 37%.
- Advanced (level 3) accounted for 46%.
- Higher (level 4+) accounted for 17%.
- Incentives by sector subject area (Table 3):
The three largest sector subject areas were:
- Health, Public Services and Care, which accounted for 23%.
- Business, Administration and Law, which accounted for 20%.
- Engineering and Manufacturing Technologies, which accounted for 19%.
Table 1: Planned starts on the apprenticeship incentive scheme by month and age as of 08 December 2021
| Month | 16-24 | 25+ | All |
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| Aug-20 | 1,820 | 600 | 2,420 |
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| Sep-20 | 12,530 | 2,410 | 14,940 |
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| Oct-20 | 9,390 | 1,860 | 11,250 |
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| Nov-20 | 7,940 | 2,030 | 9,970 |
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| Dec-20 | 3,790 | 1,160 | 4,950 |
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| Jan-21 | 7,800 | 3,270 | 11,080 |
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| Feb-21 | 5,070 | 2,230 | 7,300 |
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| Mar-21 | 5,770 | 3,010 | 8,780 |
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| Apr-21 | 4,750 | 1,920 | 6,660 |
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| May-21 | 4,690 | 2,100 | 6,790 |
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| Jun-21 | 5,000 | 2,110 | 7,110 |
|---|
| Jul-21 | 5,940 | 1,800 | 7,740 |
|---|
| Aug-21 | 6,630 | 1,950 | 8,580 |
|---|
| Sep-21 | 33,060 | 6,110 | 39,170 |
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| Oct-21 | 7,170 | 1,630 | 8,800 |
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| Nov-21 | 4,810 | 1,450 | 6,270 |
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| Total | 126,160 | 35,650 | 161,810 |
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Table 2: Planned starts on the apprenticeship incentive scheme by month and level as of 08 December 2021
| Month | Level 2 | Level 3 | Level 4 | Level 5 | Level 6 | Level 7 | All |
|---|
| Aug-20 | 970 | 1,060 | 140 | 30 | 170 | 70 | 2,420 |
|---|
| Sep-20 | 4,390 | 6,540 | 990 | 260 | 1,520 | 1,250 | 14,940 |
|---|
| Oct-20 | 4,190 | 5,170 | 830 | 170 | 670 | 230 | 11,250 |
|---|
| Nov-20 | 4,150 | 4,740 | 470 | 60 | 410 | 150 | 9,970 |
|---|
| Dec-20 | 2,140 | 2,360 | 220 | 60 | 70 | 100 | 4,950 |
|---|
| Jan-21 | 3,770 | 5,050 | 670 | 160 | 1,060 | 370 | 11,080 |
|---|
| Feb-21 | 2,880 | 3,340 | 440 | 140 | 420 | 90 | 7,300 |
|---|
| Mar-21 | 3,400 | 3,830 | 580 | 200 | 630 | 140 | 8,780 |
|---|
| Apr-21 | 2,930 | 2,940 | 350 | 110 | 270 | 60 | 6,660 |
|---|
| May-21 | 2,740 | 3,070 | 340 | 110 | 420 | 120 | 6,790 |
|---|
| Jun-21 | 2,960 | 3,190 | 400 | 90 | 430 | 60 | 7,110 |
|---|
| Jul-21 | 3,150 | 3,720 | 380 | 80 | 360 | 60 | 7,740 |
|---|
| Aug-21 | 3,420 | 3,900 | 450 | 80 | 470 | 240 | 8,580 |
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| Sep-21 | 12,790 | 18,990 | 2,270 | 470 | 2,800 | 1,850 | 39,170 |
|---|
| Oct-21 | 3,240 | 3,920 | 710 | 170 | 490 | 260 | 8,800 |
|---|
| Nov-21 | 2,430 | 2,780 | 500 | 160 | 70 | 310 | 6,270 |
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| Total | 59,530 | 74,580 | 9,730 | 2,340 | 10,280 | 5,350 | 161,810 |
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Table 3: Planned starts on the apprenticeship incentive scheme by sector subject area as of 08 December 2021
| Sector subject area | Incentives |
| Agriculture, Horticulture and Animal Care | 4,130 |
| Arts, Media and Publishing | 1,460 |
| Business, Administration and Law | 32,710 |
| Construction, Planning and the Built Environment | 20,210 |
| Education and Training | 4,450 |
| Engineering and Manufacturing Technologies | 31,440 |
| Health, Public Services and Care | 38,010 |
| History, Philosophy and Theology | ~ |
| Information and Communication Technology | 9,810 |
| Leisure, Travel and Tourism | 2,970 |
| Retail and Commercial Enterprise | 16,430 |
| Science and Mathematics | 90 |
| Social Sciences | 90 |
| Total | 161,810 |
Please note: Incentive claims shown here include only those that are active in the system at the point of reporting. Some incentive claims may subsequently be withdrawn after an application is submitted, for instance by the employer, and these are not included in the totals here.
Traineeships incentive payments (AS PUBLISHED IN NOVEMBER 2021)
The government introduced a new incentive payment in September 2020 to support employers who host a work placement experience as part of the Traineeship programme from 1st September 2020 up to 31st July 2022. Employers are eligible to apply for this incentive if the work placement lasts a minimum of 70 hours and is delivered, as a minimum, over a 10-working day duration. The incentive payment can be claimed using an online claim form and can only be claimed once the work placement has been completed and eligibility has been confirmed by the training provider.
Employers can claim £1,000 for each placement that is hosted; this is capped at 10 placements per region across the 9 English regions in any one academic year.
Further information on the incentive, the claims process and the regions can be found on .GOV: Traineeship employer incentive registration form - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) (opens in a new tab)
As of 15 November 2021, for incentive payments made up to 10 November 2021:
- The number of traineeship incentives paid has been 2,330.
- The number of unique organisations receiving a payment has been 1,130.
- The number of unique learners who have received an incentive payment for an employer has been 2,290.
Note that one learner can generate more than one payment if they attend more than one placement at one or more employers, each employer will then be able to claim a £1000 payment.
Traineeship incentive payments by local authority district (AS PUBLISHED IN NOVEMBER 2021)
The ‘traineeship-incentive-payments-by-2021-november’ CSV file in the ‘explore data and files’ section provides breakdowns of the numbers above based on the local authority district (LAD) of the learner’s home postcode for whom an employer has received a payment.
As stated above there have been 1,131 unique organisations who have received an incentive payment. In the LAD CSV file ‘the number of organisations receiving an incentive payment’ column sums to more than the unique count of organisations above. This is because the number of organisations paid in each LAD is a distinct count of organisations who have been paid due to hosting a placement for a learner living in that LAD.
A single organisation may have received payment for learners in more than one LAD so may be included in the organisation count of more than one LAD in the CSV file but is only counted once in the total unique number of organisations receiving a payment (the 1,131 above).
Employers reporting the withdrawal of apprentices due to redundancy during COVID (UPDATED 22 DECEMBER 2021)
From 30 July 2020, employers have been able to record on the Apprenticeship Service (AS) if an apprenticeship has ended due to a redundancy. This will provide more accurate and timely data on redundancies than that captured via the ‘withdrawal reason’ on the ILR, and will be a reliable ongoing source of data.
This data does not capture all apprenticeships, as prior to 01 April 2021 not all non-levy employers were using the AS. From 01 April 2021 all new starts are reported and managed through the AS. Additionally, employers can record information about redundancies at a later date on the AS, therefore the information can suffer from ‘data lag’ with information being recorded weeks or months after the redundancy actually happened.
As of 08 December 2021, the number of apprenticeship redundancies reported so far from August 2020 was 5,280, of which:
The proportions by apprenticeship level were (Table 4):
- Intermediate (level 2): 26%
- Advanced (level 3): 48%
- Higher (level 4+): 27%
The proportion by age group was (Table 5):
- Under 19: 28%
- 19-24: 29%
- 25 and over: 43%
Levy paying organisations accounted for 66%
In addition to the 5,280 redundancies, a further 1,570 redundancies were reported in 2020 prior to August, i.e. the new reporting feature has captured some delayed reporting prior to August. As it was not possible for an employer to provide redundancy as a reason for an apprenticeship ending prior to 30th July, data for months before August 2020 are underrepresented and an overall figure has been included for transparency only.
Table 4: Apprenticeship redundancies by redundancy month and level as of 08 December 2021
| Month | Apprenticeship level | Month total |
|---|
| Intermediate | Advanced | Higher | |
|---|
| Aug-20 | 130 | 540 | 180 | 850 |
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| Sep-20 | 150 | 320 | 140 | 610 |
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| Oct-20 | 130 | 250 | 140 | 520 |
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| Nov-20 | 80 | 180 | 90 | 350 |
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| Dec-20 | 90 | 140 | 160 | 380 |
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| Jan-21 | 70 | 170 | 260 | 490 |
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| Feb-21 | 60 | 80 | 40 | 180 |
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| Mar-21 | 70 | 130 | 60 | 270 |
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| Apr-21 | 90 | 120 | 60 | 260 |
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| May-21 | 80 | 90 | 40 | 200 |
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| Jun-21 | 70 | 100 | 70 | 240 |
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| Jul-21 | 90 | 100 | 40 | 230 |
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| Aug-21 | 80 | 100 | 40 | 220 |
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| Sep-21 | 80 | 110 | 30 | 230 |
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| Oct-21 | 60 | 60 | 30 | 140 |
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| Nov-21 | 50 | 50 | 20 | 120 |
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| Total | 1,370 | 2,510 | 1,400 | 5,280 |
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Table 5: Apprenticeship redundancies by redundancy month and age as of 08 December 2021
| Month | Age of Apprentice | Month total |
|---|
| Under 19 | 19-24 | 25+ | |
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| Aug-20 | 180 | 330 | 340 | 850 |
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| Sep-20 | 180 | 170 | 270 | 610 |
|---|
| Oct-20 | 120 | 140 | 260 | 520 |
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| Nov-20 | 80 | 90 | 190 | 350 |
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| Dec-20 | 70 | 90 | 220 | 380 |
|---|
| Jan-21 | 120 | 180 | 200 | 490 |
|---|
| Feb-21 | 60 | 50 | 70 | 180 |
|---|
| Mar-21 | 70 | 70 | 120 | 270 |
|---|
| Apr-21 | 70 | 70 | 120 | 260 |
|---|
| May-21 | 70 | 40 | 90 | 200 |
|---|
| Jun-21 | 70 | 60 | 110 | 240 |
|---|
| Jul-21 | 90 | 60 | 80 | 230 |
|---|
| Aug-21 | 80 | 70 | 70 | 220 |
|---|
| Sep-21 | 110 | 60 | 60 | 230 |
|---|
| Oct-21 | 60 | 50 | 40 | 140 |
|---|
| Nov-21 | 50 | 40 | 30 | 120 |
|---|
| Total | 1,480 | 1,540 | 2,260 | 5,280 |
|---|
Additional information
To further support apprentices who have been made redundant, or who are at risk of redundancy, we have introduced the Redundancy Support Service for Apprentices (ReSSA) (opens in a new tab).
Apprenticeship adverts and vacancies (UPDATED 22 DECEMBER 2021)
The apprenticeship adverts and vacancies in this section are as published on the Find An Apprenticeship (opens in a new tab) (FAA) website. They represent only a subset of the total number of vacancies available across the marketplace, as many apprenticeships are not advertised through this website.
Adverts and vacancy data have historically been reported from the V1 vacancies database of the FAA service, which was designed before the Apprenticeship levy and the creation of the digital Apprenticeship Service, for use by Training Providers providing recruitment services to Employers.
We are now able to also incorporate data from the V2 vacancies database of the FAA service. This entered service in 2018 and is designed to enable Employers to manage their own Apprentice recruitment through their account with the digital Apprenticeship Service.
From the May 2021 statistics publication, published data covered all adverts and vacancies from the two systems supporting the Find an Apprenticeships service. Historical figures were retrospectively updated to include this additional data.
There were 11,510 adverts containing 19,770 vacancies advertised on Find An Apprenticeship in November 2021. These are more than double the corresponding adverts and vacancies reported in November 2020 (5,250 and 8,260 respectively). However, it must be noted that 2020 was affected by coronavirus restrictions.
Create your own tables
You can create your own tables in the table builder using the find an apprenticeship adverts and vacancies data. The following table offers useful breakdowns from August 2018 to November 2021.
In our November release we published an underlying file ‘Underlying data – apprenticeship vacancies’ in the ‘explore data and files’ section, which contained more information about the vacancies published on Find an apprenticeship. The current file covers vacancies from August 2018 to October 2021. This file will be updated alongside our quarterly releases, the next update being in January 2022.
Find apprenticeship training
For employers looking to take on apprentices, see find apprenticeship training. (opens in a new tab)
The service can be used to:
- Search for apprenticeship training by job role or keyword
- Find training providers who offer the apprenticeship training you choose
- Find a named training provider you want to use
Skills Tool Kit (Experimental Statistics) (UPDATED 22 DECEMBER 2021)
The Skills Toolkit (opens in a new tab) was launched on 28 April 2020 to help people build their skills during the coronavirus outbreak and beyond.
As of 28 November 2021, there have been over 2.9 million (2,944,100) total page views on the skills toolkit website. This data is reported as a part of systems monitoring. Some users might access the page from more than one device and, if so, will be counted more than once in the figures.
As of 28 November, there have been an estimated 241,700 course registrations and 48,600 course completions.
Please note:
- These are experimental statistics and rely on website analytics and the method of processing these is subject to change and provide an indication of the engagement with the Skills Toolkit website and campaign, designed to encourage users to access free online learning resources during the COVID-19 pandemic to build new skills or get a new job. These statistics are being provided for transparency purposes and there are data limitations users need to consider around provider reporting and collection approach, which will result in an incomplete picture of all learning activity resulting from the Toolkit website.
- In this update, four providers (Cisco, AWS, Google, Open University) were unable to provide a complete data return for the latest period. Additionally, six courses will no longer receive further registrations or completion data (four FutureLearn and two Good Things Foundation), whilst nine FutureLearn courses are no longer included in the Skills Toolkit listing.
- In the March 2021 update, the provider Corndel amended the methodology they used to improve their count of users and updated historic figures for the period covering September to December 2020, reducing the number of registrations for that period by 1,077.
- In the November 2021 release we updated the course registrations and completions downloadable csv file, which also contains provider/course breakdowns (please see ‘Skills toolkit course registrations and completions as at 08-11-2021’ in ‘View data and files’). This downloadable file excludes provider data where this had not been validated by the time of reporting. This detailed csv file will be updated alongside the main quarterly releases, whereas total figures for registrations and completions are provided monthly.
- The Skills Toolkit webpages are hosted on gov.uk and the National Careers Service website. Course registration is undertaken on course provider websites. Course providers supply data to the DfE for learners registering on their courses where they are satisfied they have done so through the Toolkit website. DfE do not receive data from course providers on the country the learner accessed the course from, but we expect this to be the UK in most cases.
- Course providers collect data on registrations and completions to their courses through various methods and separately submit returns to the Department for Education relating to The Skills Toolkit. These returns are then assessed and aggregated. Estimates are provisional as there may be a lag in data reporting.
- All providers are asked to outline their methods of reporting and explain why they are confident that the figures they provide represent an accurate view of the number of course registrations they have received, as a result of The Skills Toolkit. Course providers outline their method of reporting to the DfE after being given a clear mandate to ensure that they are accurate to the best of their knowledge and understanding, and are asked to report a change in their methods of reporting or any errors/issues they encounter as quickly as possible. Provider reports are then checked for unusual patterns.
- Some providers may be unable to identify if course registrations resulted from ‘The Skills Toolkit’ campaign or other means. The numbers provided only include data which, are deemed robust enough for including at this stage, so may not including some genuine registrations and is likely to represent an undercount of the true number.
- Course completions data are provided by providers in the same way registrations are and are subject to the same caveats. Additionally, not all providers are able to accurately report course completions, either because of the course format, e.g. downloadable content, videos etc, or because of technical issues to enable reporting, so, those data are not included in reporting and are denoted with 'N/A' in the underlying file. Further to this, how providers record completions and define what a completion is can vary, and again depending upon the course format (for e.g. interactive videos, modules etc), the completion stage could be different for various course types and a ‘completion’ may simply represent that a user has accessed learning material.
- Providers are requested to provide similar assurances for information (including completions) made via their data returns.
- Providers are not required to adhere to a specific approach because courses are structured differently and have different content, so learners engage with them in different ways which necessitates different approaches to calculating starts and completions.
- Since the July 2020 update to this release where course providers collectively reported 136,000 course registrations a month after the Toolkit was launched, some course providers have made The Skills Toolkit team aware of issues in their reporting. For example, providers have made changes to their analytics software and to the structure of their websites affecting the number of course starts they report. As a result, the number of registrations was revised down in our October release to be, as of 30 September 2020 there have been 97,615 course registrations and 1,100,260 page views.
- As part of the expansion of The Skills Toolkit in September 2020, we improved the reporting and quality assurance processes. As part of this work, we have identified issues with 12 courses and have removed these from our reported number of registrations.
- As a result, we are now collecting more robust estimates of registrations and completions, but we continue to work with providers on improving this further.
