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Business Apprenticeships

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What is a degree apprenticeship?

A degree apprenticeship is a job, which combines work with higher-level learning. Your apprentices can be existing team members or new recruits. The apprentice works for an employer, they can spend up to 80% of their time in the workplace but must spend at least 20 per cent of their time in study or training with an apprenticeship training provider.

 Why should employers offer degree apprenticeships?

  • Develop employees to have the senior-level skills you need
  • Discover new talent
  • Raise staff satisfaction
  • Improve productivity and the quality of your service

Employers may be able to cover or contribute to course fees at no extra costs to their business/organisation via apprenticeship funding.

The Apprenticeship Levy is a UK tax on employers which can be used to fund apprenticeship training. Employers have options to access apprenticeship funding, even if they are not required to pay the levy.

Levy paying employers

If you’re an employer with a pay bill over £3 million each year, you will have been paying the apprenticeship levy from 6 April 2017. If you are a levy-paying employer, you can now create an account on the apprenticeship service to:

  • Receive levy funds for you to spend on apprenticeships
  • Manage your apprentices
  • Pay your training provider
  • Stop or pause payments to your training provider

To spend funds in your account, you need to choose a training provider, agree a price and payment schedule and pay for training and assessment with funds through your apprenticeship service account.

Non-Levy paying employers

Non-levy paying employers will share the cost of training and assessing their apprentices with government - this is called ‘co-investment’.

The co-investment rate has changed for new apprenticeships starting on or after 1 April 2019. You will now pay 5% towards the cost of apprenticeship training. The government will pay the rest (95%) up to the funding band maximum.

You’ll need to agree a payment schedule with the provider and pay them directly for the training. The provider must prove that you have paid your contributions as a condition of government paying its contribution.