Apprenticeships for the education workforce

Apprenticeships provide an excellent way for schools to either bring in fresh talent or enhance the skills of their current staff. Apprentices are employed by the school, gaining knowledge, skills and behaviours that will ensure they maximise their impact in their chosen occupation, while developing personally and professionally. An apprenticeship is a structured programme of professional development undertaken within a paid role. It combines day-to-day practice with structured study delivered by an approved college, university or training provider. Apprentices develop the knowledge, skills and behaviours required for their role while continuing to contribute to the school, supported by experienced tutors and workplace mentors, and achieve a nationally recognised qualification. For schools and trusts, apprenticeships provide a cost-effective way to strengthen workforce capability, develop existing staff and build future capacity while maintaining day-to-day provision. Learning is applied directly in the workplace, delivering immediate benefits to pupils, teams and the wider organisation.

Anyone working for a trust, school, or diocese. We’re working with Church of England trusts, mixed trusts and community trusts across England as well as diocese and individual schools, to support you to unitise your apprenticeship levy. We know apprenticeships can help you retain and attract brilliant individuals within your organisations.

There is no maximum age for an apprentice. An apprentice must be 16 or over.

Yes. Apprentices must have the correct residency status, have lived in the UK for the last 3 years and be living in England for the duration of their training. They can’t be in full-time education or on another government-funded training programme either.

Apprentices aged 19 and over are not generally required to achieve new English and maths qualifications to complete their apprenticeship. However, some roles have additional professional requirements. For example, Early Years Educators must hold a suitable Level 2 qualification in English.

No, apprenticeships are for new and existing employees and offer a structured and tailored way to train, upskill, and invest in your staff.

The minimum duration of an apprenticeship in our offer is 12 months. Most of the apprenticeships we’re offering have a duration of 18-24 months. Download our digital brochure for more details.

Each apprentice is supported by a workplace mentor who provides guidance, observes practice, gives feedback on progress and supports ongoing development. Mentors receive training and support from the apprenticeship provider and attend progress reviews every 8 to 10 weeks alongside the tutor.

The apprenticeship levy covers the cost of training, and the employer pays their salary and any other associated employment costs. Apprentices must be paid at least the National Minimum Wage (NMW). There are different levels of NMW, depending on age and whether you are an apprentice. (www.gov.uk/national-minimum-wage-rates). An organisation can choose to pay an apprentice above the minimum wage. By offering a competitive salary you are more likely to get the right person for your organisation. If you choose to upskill an existing employee, it is likely they will remain on their existing salary.

Apprentices have the same terms and conditions as all other employees, including any sickness and holiday entitlements. As employees, apprentices should be issued with a contract of employment. If they are on a fixed term contract, it must cover the full duration of the apprenticeship.

Apprenticeship training is funded through the apprenticeship levy, introduced by the UK Government in 2017. Employers with an annual pay bill of over £3 million contribute 0.5% of their payroll to the levy. These funds are held in a digital account and can be used to pay for approved apprenticeship training and assessment. Levy funds expire after 24 months if they are not used, so organisations are encouraged to plan how they will invest these funds in workforce development. Most medium and large school trusts have a wage bill that places them within the levy system. For these organisations, apprenticeships provide a practical way to reinvest levy contributions directly into staff development, leadership capacity and succession planning. Schools and trusts that do not pay the levy, or whose payroll is part of a pooled arrangement, can still access apprenticeship funding. Training is supported either through a government co-investment model, where the employer typically pays around 5% of the training cost and the government funds the remaining 95%, or through levy transfer, where a larger organisation shares unused levy funds to cover training costs. As a result, apprenticeships are a cost-effective and powerful option for recruiting, developing and retaining staff, regardless of the size of your school or trust.

Employers manage their levy funds through a (Digital Apprenticeship Service) DAS account dedicated to apprenticeship training expenditures. The levy is paid into the DAS account monthly. For more detailed information on how your organisation type impacts how you access levy funds, download our Apprenticeship Levy Guide for Schools and Trusts.‍

Working a term-time only contract is not a barrier to a colleague completing an apprenticeship and all of our webinars will be delivered during term-time to accommodate term-time only contracts as standard.

Note an apprentices ‘off the job training’ must be completed during working hours. Colleagues working part-time is also not usually a barrier to completing an apprenticeship. To complete an apprenticeship in the time-phase stated, they need to be working at least 30 hours per week. Colleagues working fewer hours may need to extend the duration of their training. This will be assessed on a case-by-case basis with the provider. This is based on guidance published in January 2026 by the DfE and can be found here.

OTJT is a vital part of any apprenticeship and it’s a condition of the apprenticeship funding rules that 20% of the apprentices’ paid hours are allocated to OTJT activities. It helps to reinforce the practical work-based skills completed on the job by the learner. The DfE define off the job training as ‘learning which is undertaken outside of the normal day to day working environment.’ This does not necessarily mean time out of the classroom/office requiring staff cover.

This isn’t the case. OTJT can be accrued over the course of the apprenticeship. It doesn’t have to be regimented to one day per week. Varied delivery can be used, such as short webinars, day release, study time, relevant INSET training and more, depending on the context.

It doesn’t always have to be. Training can be delivered through various methods such as e-learning, self-study, and virtual classrooms. And it’s not just teaching of the theory side which counts. Practical training and learning such as, shadowing, mentoring, workshops, relevant internal CPD and research can also contribute.