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Apprenticeship Funding

What is Apprenticeship Funding

Apprenticeship funding is available in England to employers via the apprenticeship levy. This levy was introduced by the UK government in 2017 and requires organisations with a pay bill of £3 million or over to pay a 0.5% levy on their total annual pay bill. The revenue raised from this levy goes into the funding of apprenticeships. 

Employers paying the levy can then access their levy funds to spend on any apprenticeship training they believe would benefit their business. The levy is also used to fund apprenticeship training courses for other employers looking to recruit apprentices. For instance, employers with a total annual pay bill of under £3 million are only required to pay 5% of the cost of their apprenticeship training, with the government funding the rest.

Contributions from the Government

In instances where an employer is also acting as the training provider for an apprentice aged between 16 and 18, they can claim a £2,000 incentive contribution. If they are using an independent training provider then they would receive an incentive of £1,000 with the training provider also receiving the same amount. Additionally, organisations that employ fewer than 50 people receive 100% apprenticeship funding for the training of 16–18-year-olds.

Apprenticeship Funding Bands

There are a total of 30 different bands available. Their respective upper limits for available funding currently range from £1,500 (for band 1) all the way up to £27,000 (for band 30). These bands are not impacted by the age or location of the learner and training costs can be agreed between the employer and training provider (if the employer is not conducting the training).  

Full information is provided from the government and is available directly from Apprenticeship funding bands 

Apprenticeship Funding Rules 

Each year the Apprenticeship funding rules are published by the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA). All training providers and employers are subject to these rules and the ESFA does conduct annual audits on training providers to ensure compliance.

Accessing Funding

To access apprenticeship funding, employers are required to create an account with the Apprenticeship Service. 
 
Creating an account will allow you to: 

  • access and manage apprenticeship funding 
  • set up and approve apprentices 
  • advertise roles on the 'Find an apprenticeship' service 
  • approve training costs 
  • check payments to training providers 
  • give training providers permission to carry out some tasks on your behalf 
  • give feedback on apprenticeship training 

Employers can create an Apprenticeship Service account by visiting here 

Joining the Register of Apprenticeship Training Providers

The Register of Apprenticeship Training Providers (RoATP) is a record of organisations that are eligible to receive government funding to train apprentices. 

The Department for Education (DfE) manages the register and ensure that any new training providers added to it meet a provision gap in areas that require growth. You can join the register if you are one or more of the following: 

  • an employer that pays the levy and wishes to train your own workforce or apprentices 
  • a training provider nominated by an employer that has successfully evidenced a gap in the existing apprenticeship provision offer 
  • a training provider that delivers provision that the DfE wants to grow or is aware of capacity issues with (in this instance you can either request to join the register of request an invitation to apply to join, depending on your level of regulation