Conservatives pledge 100,000 new apprenticeships per year

The Conservatives will tomorrow (Wednesday 29 May) announce they will deliver 100,000 more high skilled apprenticeships a year by the end of the next parliament.  

The Conservatives' clear plan will replace the worst performing courses with high-skilled apprenticeships which provide more opportunities and greater financial security. 

Apprenticeships drive productivity and growth, as well as allowing young people to earn while they learn - key to unlocking a high-wage, high-growth and high-productivity economy. Apprenticeships spread opportunity and drive social mobility for a more secure future.  

The UK is home to four of the top ten universities globally which boost local economies. However, too many university degrees are leaving students worse off. One in five graduates would have been better off if they hadn't gone to university, and one in three graduates are in jobs that don't require a degree. As a result, £1 of every £4 borrowed by students is never paid back, leaving taxpayers to foot the ever-growing bill for rip off degrees.  

The Conservatives' bold action to replace these degrees with apprenticeships will boost young people's life chances and stop the taxpayer rip off. While Labour's proposals would take young people back to square one, with official analysis revealing that Sir Keir Starmer could reduce apprenticeships to just 140,000 every year - less than half the current number. 

The poorest performing university courses will be assessed on drop-out rates, job progression and future earnings potential. We will continue to support high-quality degrees which enable our growth sectors like life sciences and the creative industries. 

To boost the provision of apprenticeships, the Conservatives are already taking steps to boost uptake, like cutting red tape for small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) and fully funding the cost of training for young apprentices in SMEs. They will also work with the creative sector to make sure apprenticeships are working for them, including building on the pilots that have previously tested out models to help apprentices work on different projects, something that is especially common in creative sectors.  

Apprenticeships are crucial to providing good, well-paid jobs in both the public and private sector in everything from the creative industries to engineering. In the UK, apprenticeships offer routes into almost 70 per cent of occupations, providing opportunity across the country. 

The Conservatives already have an impressive track record on apprenticeships, delivering an extra 5.8 million apprenticeships since 2010. The last Labour government neglected apprenticeships in favour of their arbitrary 50 percent university target, which led to low-value degrees ballooning. 

Rishi Sunak MP, Prime Minister said: 

“Improving education is the closest thing we have to a silver bullet for boosting life chances. So, it's not fair that some university courses are ripping young people off. 

“Thanks to our plan, apprenticeships are much higher quality than they were under Labour. And now we will create 100,000 more, by putting an end to rip-off degrees and offering our young people the employment opportunities and financial security they need to thrive.   

“That's the choice at this election – the Conservatives with our clear plan to grow the economy and give people the opportunities they need for a secure future, or Labour who have no plan and would take us back to square one.” 

Gillian Keegan MP, Education Secretary said:  

 “There are no limits to where an apprenticeship can take you. Mine took me from a car factory in Kirkby to the Cabinet.    

“When Labour were in power they pushed an arbitrary target to get half of young people to university, creating a boom in low quality degrees - leaving far too many students saddled with debt and little else. 

“The choice is clear. Sir Keir Starmer and the Labour party who have contempt for apprenticeships, or Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives who have a clear plan to give young people the best start to their careers.” 

ENDS 

For further information, please contact the Press Office on 020 7984 8121 or email us at press@conservatives.com.  

Notes to Editors 

• The Conservatives have delivered 5.8 million apprenticeships since 2010.
• In 2022/23, we delivered 340,000 apprenticeship starts. 

Our Plan 

• Delivering 100,000 more apprenticeships by the end of next parliament. We have reformed apprenticeships so they provide genuinely high-quality training to the young people who pursue them and the businesses that rely on them. Thanks to our reforms you can now get to 70% of occupations via an apprenticeship – like being a nurse, teacher, accountant, lawyer, even space engineer. Now that the foundations are right, we will go further by massively expanding the number of apprenticeships with 100,000 more every single year by the end of the next parliament, backed by new funding to make it possible.  

• Working with the creative sector to ensure apprenticeships are working for them. For example, we will look to strengthen coordination services where apprentices work across different projects and make sure teaching is of the highest quality with up to date, generously funded Standards.

• Closing university courses that make students poorer. We will change the law so that the poorest performing university courses can be closed, courses will be identified based existing and well-established quality controls known as B3, these are based on dropout rates, progression onto graduate jobs and – in future – earnings potential. Our new law would grant new powers to the universities regulator – the Office for Students - to close courses that are underperforming.This will protect students from being sold a false dream and protect the taxpayer from having to pay where the graduate can't, by making sure more student loans are paid back.  

How we will pay for this 

• Delivering an additional 100,000 apprenticeships by the end of next parliament will cost £885 million in 29/30. This is calculated by taking an average price of apprenticeship per level (based on maximum IfATE funding bands), and then assumes the same completion rate and distribution of apprenticeships by level as recent trends (based on 2021/22 data).  This means this policy will cost £940m by 29/30. We then assume some 16 –19-year-olds taking up apprenticeships will do so instead of pursuing an alternative taxpayer funded 16-19 route, reducing the total cost to £885 million by 29/30.  

• Closing the poorest performing courses, while assuming the majority of the students still go onto further education, generates savings of £910m in 29/30. As a proxy for closing the poorest performing courses, of which the precise courses will be a matter for the independent regulator, we have costed this based on 13% of the student cohort. This is based on a conservative estimate of the impact of quality controls when properly enforced, given that the IFS finds that 1 in 5 students would have been better off having not gone to university, and 40% of graduates are forecast not to repay their loan in full. On the basis that the average cost of a student loan is £15k per year 1and that the amount the taxpayer expects of offset of these loans is greater than the average student at 40% (because they are relatively poorer courses), this generates savings of £1.1bn in 29/30. We then assume 25% go straight into employment, 50% do an apprenticeship and 25% go onto a better, higher quality course. Having accounted for these behavioural effects, this amounts to savings of £910m in 29/30.
   

Our reforms to apprenticeships have already improved quality:  

• We have transformed young people's opportunities to gain the skills they need. Our schools have risen up the international rankings, we have delivered 5.8 million apprenticeships and an English 18-year-old from a disadvantaged background is 74% more likely to go to university today than in 2010. (UCAS, UCAS Undergraduate End Of Cycle Data Resources 2023, link)
• We have created new Apprenticeship Standards designed in collaboration with over 5,000 employers to make sure apprenticeships meet the needs in their businesses. We created the Institute for Apprenticeships and apprenticeships now cover approximately 70% of occupations (twice the rate of Germany at 33%). (Gatsby, What is an apprenticeship?, May 2022, link)
• We have legislated to ensure every apprentice receives the 20% off-the-job training they deserve, to guarantee that they can't just be used as cheap labour. We are now making sure all apprenticeship providers are inspected by Ofsted. 
• We have introduced the Apprenticeship Levy which our largest businesses pay to encourage them to hire apprenticeships. And where they don't use the money, this goes to supporting all the SMEs who don't pay the Levy. Thanks to the Levy, the apprenticeships budget will be £2.7 billion next year and 98% of the apprenticeship budget has been spent on apprenticeships over the last two years. 
• We have put apprenticeships on UCAS so that young people can make a genuine choice between an apprenticeship or university. 

Why our plan is needed 

• Median first-degree graduate earnings five years after graduation were £28,800 compared with £33,800 for level 4 apprentices and £31,380 for level 5 apprentices. (DfE, Further Education outcomes, Academic year 2020/21, link and DfE, LEO Graduate and Postgraduate Outcomes, July 23, link)

• Evidence that university is not delivering the outcomes it should for all young people:

o According to the IFS, one in five HE graduates would be better off financially if they had not gone to university.(IfS, The impact of undergraduate degrees on lifetime earnings, February 2020, link) 

o One in three graduates are in roles that don't require a degree. (ONS, One in three graduates overeducated for their current role, April 2019, link). 

o 40% of graduates (who start degree in 2023/24) are forecast not to repay their loan in full. (DfE, Student loan forecasts for England, July 23, link) 

o The taxpayer is paying for £1 in every £4 that students borrow to go to university. (Parliament, Written Question, April 2024, link) 

The alternative 

• Sir Keir Starmer wants to halve the number of apprenticeships. They have no plan to protect the funding for SMEs to hire apprentices and as a result official analysis shows this could reduce apprenticeships to just 140,000 every year, less than half the number of apprenticeships. This is the same party who pursued an arbitrary 50% university target while having no plan to boost apprenticeships. (Written Parliamentary Question, November 2023 link)

o The IFS have said that broadening the levy creates a ‘significant risk' that it ‘simply pays for training that would have already taken place' and could lead to a ‘high degree of deadweight loss' (IFS, Investment in training and skills, October 23, link) 

o The Education Policy Institute said: ‘there are risks that this flexibility would fund training that would have taken place anyway, whilst depressing the number of apprenticeships'. (EPI, EPI comments on the Labour Party's announcement of reform to the apprenticeship levy and the creation of Skills England, September 2022, link) 

• When Labour were last in power they neglected apprenticeships while pushing their arbitrary 50% university target. A review commissioned by the Labour Party on vocational education like apprenticeships in 2013 admitted that in pursuing the target “not enough attention was paid to the options available to those who do not go to university.”  (Professor Chris Husbands, A revolution in apprenticeships: a something-for-something deal with employers, August 2013, link)

• You only have to look at Labour Wales to see the consequences of no plan for education.  The OECD has said that Labour-run Wales has seen ‘its performance decline' as ‘too many young people are leaving education without the basic skills they need'. In the most recent PISA scores, Wales had the worst outcomes in all of the UK having plummeted down the international league tables. (PISA Scores, News Report, 5 December 2023, link)