Apprenticeship funding

An Apprenticeship Levy was first introduced by the government in April 2017. Employers with an annual payroll of at least £3 million pay 0.5% of total payroll costs towards it, and this levy pot is reserved specifically for employee training through Apprenticeship programmes.

From April 2026, the Apprenticeship Levy is now called the Growth & Skills Levy. This levy continues to be available for apprenticeship programmes - but with greater focus on training at Level 6 and below, and learners aged under 25 years old.

Levy payments are managed by HMRC through the PAYE process. GOV.UK provides more information on how these operate.

Funds enter your account each month after you have declared the levy to HMRC
Funds expire 12 months after they enter the account if they are not spent on eligible apprenticeship training.

Smaller employers (SMEs) who do not pay the Apprenticeship Levy also have full access to apprenticeship services - with government-supported funding and other benefits available.

Contact

UK Partnerships and Apprenticeships

+ 44 (0) 1865 534900 option 4

apprentices@brookes.ac.uk

How to use the apprenticeship service

If you are an employer, you can create an account on the GOVUK Apprenticeship Service (sometimes also referred to as ‘AS’ or ‘DAS’) to:

receive levy funds for you to spend on apprenticeships
manage your apprentice enrolment data
make or manage training provider payments (e.g a university or college).

You can use funds in your account to pay for training and assessment of employees that work at least 50% of their normal contracted hours in England.

An apprenticeship can only be funded by levy up to the funding band maximum which Skills England allocates to that programme. Once training starts, monthly payments are taken from your Apprenticeship Service account and sent to the provider. If the cost of any training and assessment exceeds the funding band maximum, you will pay the difference with your own budget (typically through invoices).

You can’t use levy funds to pay for certain other costs associated with your apprentices (such as wages, travel and subsidiary costs, work placements, or activities required for onboarding/admission).

If you don’t have enough funds in your account to pay for training in a particular month, you will be asked to share the remaining tuition costs with the government. This is called Co-Investment, where the employer pays 25% of that month’s outstanding balance and the government will pay the remaining 75% up to the funding band maximum.

Non-levy employers can fund programmes entirely through co-investment (split 95% government, 5% employer). From April 2026, the government also covers the full 100% of eligible training costs for new apprentice starters aged under 25.

Transferring apprenticeship service funds

Another option for non-levy paying employers is to forge an agreement with a levy-paying employer to share their funds to pay for your own apprenticeship training. This is known as a Levy Transfer. This might happen if you are within a supply chain of larger companies, can access support from a regional enterprise scheme, or have ongoing ties with an employer interested in supporting your apprentice training.