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The funding system behind apprenticeship training has more moving parts than most school leaders have time to unpick. This guide strips it back to the essentials so you can explain the numbers to your SLT, governors or finance lead in one sitting.
The apprenticeship levy is a government initiative that requires large employers, those with a pay bill over £3 million a year, to pay 0.5% of their total wage bill into a dedicated fund for apprenticeship training. Funds sit in an Apprenticeship Service account and can only be spent on approved training and assessment.
For multi-academy trusts, the levy is assessed on the combined payroll of the trust. For local-authority maintained schools, the levy is usually paid centrally by the local authority and allocated to schools using different local rules.
They cannot be spent on apprentice salaries, recruitment or onboarding costs, or training outside the approved standards.
If your school is not a levy payer, or if your levy funds are exhausted, you may be eligible for co-investment. Government funds 95% of the training cost and your school pays the remaining 5%, typically spread across the length of the programme.
Since April 2024, employers no longer have to make any co-investment contribution for apprentices under the age of 22. That means fully funded training for many early-career roles such as teaching assistants and facilities staff.
Levy-paying employers can transfer up to 50% of their annual levy contributions to other employers, including schools. This allows organisations without their own levy funds to access fully funded training.
Transfers are often used to fund higher-cost programmes, such as the Level 7 Senior Leader apprenticeship, or to support wider workforce development. Transfer partnerships are frequently built with local employers, other MATs, NHS trusts or commercial partners.
A trust with 12 schools holds a central levy pot of around £125,000 a year. It runs a termly bidding process across the trust. One primary academy secures funding for three Level 3 Teaching Assistants, totalling around £21,000. A secondary academy secures one Level 7 Senior Leader at around £14,000. Central management keeps the pot moving, aligns with trust priorities and supports consistent quality monitoring.
A standalone VA school does not pay the levy. It applies to a local FE college for a levy transfer of around £7,000 and uses the money to fund one Level 4 School Business Professional apprenticeship. Because the transfer covers the full cost, the school contributes nothing itself.
An LA-maintained primary school sits inside a large local authority levy pot shared across around 120 schools. The LA runs a termly business case process. The school secures around £9,000 for one Level 3 Learning Mentor apprenticeship, provided the start date and provider align with the LA's approved framework.
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