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"Scrapping funding for higher apprenticeships sends the wrong message about long-term career development"

ended 27. May 2025

Overnight, the Government has announced that “young people are set to benefit from 120,000 new training opportunities as part of a radical skills revolution, giving them the chance to develop skills where they are most needed across the workforce to rebuild Britain”.

It continued: “More skilled brickies, carpenters and healthcare support workers will soon be trained up as we continue our drive to get Britain working, with landmark reforms announced today that refocus the skills landscape towards young, domestic talent.”

However, under the plans, it said it will be “refocusing funding away from Level 7 (masters-level) apprenticeships from January 2026, while maintaining support for those aged 16-21 and existing apprentices. This will enable levy funding to be rebalanced towards training at lower levels, where it can have the greatest impact.”

Newspage asked business owners for their views, below.

2 responses from the Newspage community

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Editor
Scott Gallacher
Director at Rowley Turton
The focus on entry-level skills is welcome. We do need more bricklayers, care workers and trades. But scrapping funding for higher apprenticeships sends the wrong message about long-term career development. For many small businesses, apprenticeships are about developing talent all the way to senior roles. Shifting the cost of higher-level training to employers risks discouraging that. A master’s degree is far from a job guarantee. For almost every role we advertise, we receive applications from overqualified candidates struggling to get a foot in the door. Removing access to higher-level apprenticeships could make it even harder for them to start their careers in a meaningful way. This feels like robbing Peter to pay Paul — prioritising entry-level skills at the expense of future leadership and expertise. Hardly supporting a high skilled workforce.
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Debbie Porter
Managing Director at Destination Digital Marketing
If the government wants to create more brickies, carpenters and healthcare support workers, they need to reexamine the barriers to entry that make a path like this impossible for young people who’d usually take this route into a career. Ask the average later-life ‘man-on-the-tools’ how they did in their exams at school and often they will tell you they struggled. Becoming a tradie was the route they took because they were good with their hands, and not good at algebra. And back then, an apprenticeship was possible. The current mandatory requirement for a grade 4 in Maths and English to get onto an apprenticeship is a serious disabler for young people who still fit this mould in the present day. Young, keen and capable people who could perfectly fit the skills shortage in the trades if this barrier were removed are being thrown on the scrap heap.