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What does an apprentice actually cost you?
Funding pages answer one question: what share of the training bill you pay. That is rarely the largest number, and a firm that plans around it alone gets a surprise in month two.
- Employment
- Apprenticeships
- Skills
- Recruitment
- Small firms
The short answer
From 1 August 2026 the government pays all the training for apprentices aged 16 to 24. At 25 and over, a firm that does not pay the levy pays 5%; a levy payer whose funds have run out pays 25%. From 1 October 2026 a non-levy firm can get up to £2,000 for hiring an apprentice aged 16 to 24. This adds training, wage and supervision together, because the third is usually the largest and is in no funding table.
On this page · 5 sections
The example loaded is a Level 3 standard at £9,000 of training, a 22-year-old on £18,000, and three hours a week of someone senior's time at £30 an hour. Change every figure.
The supervision field is the one that decides the answer. Three hours a week for a year is 156 hours — at £30 that is £4,680, which is more than the training contribution on almost any standard.
Your numbers
Opens on a worked example, not an industry average. Replace every figure with your own — there is no such thing as a default here.
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Show the working
What it leaves out
Employer National Insurance, pension contributions, equipment, and the cost of the off-the-job training hours the apprentice spends away from productive work — typically 20% of their time. Add those and the picture worsens; none of them change the shape of the answer.
It also assumes the apprenticeship runs a full year. If it does not, both the wage and the supervision scale down, but the training contribution may not.
Skills funding is devolved and these figures are the England position. We are not a training provider and this is not advice on a specific standard.
Why supervision is the field that matters
Because it is the only one you control and the only one that is reliably underestimated. Everybody budgets the wage. Almost nobody budgets 156 hours of a senior person's year — and when it is not budgeted it is not refused either, it is simply taken, usually from the person who is already busiest.
This is the same arithmetic that governs adopting a tool: the visible price is not the cost, and the invisible one is measured in somebody's attention.
Questions people actually ask
How much does an employer pay towards apprenticeship training in 2026?
For apprenticeships starting from 1 August 2026, nothing for apprentices aged 16 to 24 — the government funds all the training and assessment, up to the funding band. For apprentices aged 25 and over, a firm that does not pay the levy pays 5%; a levy payer whose funds have run out pays 25%. Before August, a non-levy firm paid 5% except for the youngest apprentices, who were already fully funded.
Can a small employer get a grant for taking on an apprentice?
From 1 October 2026 a firm that does not pay the levy can receive a hiring payment of up to £2,000, in instalments, for an apprentice aged 16 to 24 at the start of training, with conditions, including that they have not worked for the firm for more than 90 days before. Levy payers draw on their levy funds instead.
What is the real cost of an apprentice?
Training contribution plus wage plus supervision, less any grant. Supervision is usually the largest controllable component and appears in no funding table: two to four hours a week of a senior person is 100 to 200 hours a year, which at typical internal rates exceeds the training contribution on most standards.
Who pays the apprenticeship levy?
UK employers with an annual pay bill over £3 million, at 0.5%. Most small employers do not pay it, but the funding rules attached to it set what an apprenticeship costs every employer, which is why the August 2026 changes affected firms that had never read anything about the levy.
Sources
- Department for Education, “Apprenticeship funding”, for new starts from 1 August 2026, read 24 September 2026: for employers who do not pay the levy and for levy payers who exhaust their funds, government funds all training and assessment costs, up to the funding band, for apprentices “aged between 16 and 24 years old” at the start; for apprentices aged 25 or over, government contributes “95%” for employers who do not pay the levy and “75%” for levy employers who exhaust their funds; non-levy employers receive “a hiring payment of up to £2,000 (paid in instalments)” for an apprentice aged 16 to 24 with a practical period starting from 1 October 2026 who has not been employed there for more than 90 days. gov.uk ↗ — primary; the department’s funding rules re-checked every 6 months
- Department for Education, “Growth and Skills Levy”, find-employer-schemes.education.gov.uk: levy at 0.5% on annual pay bills over £3 million; the 10% government top-up ends and funds expire after 12 months rather than 24. Its 0% and 25% rates are what a levy payer pays “When your levy funds run out”, which this tool until 24 September 2026 applied to every employer. find-employer-schemes.education.gov.uk ↗ — primary; the department’s own employer-facing scheme page re-checked every 6 months
- The tool excludes employer National Insurance, pension contributions, equipment and the off-the-job training hours the apprentice spends away from productive work. Skills funding is devolved and these figures are the England position. We are not a training provider. — a stated limit on the tool above
- The argument that supervision is the decisive and reliably underestimated cost is ours. — our own argument, labelled as such
Checked 24 September 2026. Next scheduled check 23 March 2027. Numbers that move — leaderboards, live indices — are re-checked every 30 days; annual datasets and rules in force every six months; dated research once a year. If something here has gone stale before we got to it, tell us and we will correct it and say what changed.
Both a hire and a tool cost somebody’s attention.
If you are weighing an apprentice against a system against carrying on as you are, we will price all three with the supervision hours included — and say so plainly when the answer is the hire rather than anything we would build.
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