UK apprenticeships:impacts of the levy and COVID-19

In the 2015 Queen’s Speech, the UK government set a target for a total of 3 million new apprenticeships starts in England by 2020, with the pledge confirmed by the new government in 2017. During the same period, the English apprenticeship system experienced a series of major reforms, affecting the duration, training requirements, content, technical level, and funding of apprenticeships. In particular, the government introduced an apprenticeship levy across the UK to help fund apprenticeship starts for large employers. Since April 2017, all UK employers with an annual pay bill of more than £3 million contribute 0.5% of their pay bill in excess of this threshold to the apprenticeship levy, which they can then use for funding apprenticeships. Gavan Conlon, Andy Dickerson, Steven McIntosh and Pietro Patrignani examine the impact of these various changes to the apprenticeship system on recent enrolments, and briefly describe the initial effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on apprenticeships.