As recently observed , this country has a long tradition of apprenticeship – a tradition stretching back to the guilds of the Middle Ages. However, what is now known as Apprenticeship, that is to say the government-supported training scheme, originated in 1995 as ‘Modern Apprenticeship’. Since then, the programme has remained central to the approach of successive governments to improving intermediate skills. The Prime Minister has described Apprenticeships as “the keys… to our future”. The review of skills conducted by Lord Leitch in 2008 confirmed this centrality in government skills policy by recommending a substantial increase in the number of Apprenticeships in the UK.

Apprenticeship is also seen by the Government as an important part of its plans to raise the minimum age at which young people can leave full-time education. Education and skills legislation put before the UK Parliament includes the provision for all young people to remain in education or training until the age of 18. Indeed, the government has recognised that plans to increase the education leaving age ‘will be extremely difficult to achieve… without significant expansion of the Apprenticeship programme’.

To provide for this expansion, the Government has introduced an entitlement for an Apprenticeship place for each suitably qualified young person from 2013. It anticipates that one in five of all young people will be undertaking an Apprenticeship within the next ten years. It is important, of course, in building a stronger and larger Apprenticeship programme, that the programme produces successful results for Apprentices themselves. To this end, BMG Research was commissioned by the Learning and Skills Council to undertake a large scale survey of Apprentices to explore the benefits of completing an Apprenticeship. A total of 3,808 Apprentices were surveyed by telephone during November and December of 2008 and January of 2009 using a structured questionnaire as the basis of interviews. Of these, 3,215 were ‘completers’, that is, Apprentices who achieved all the main parts of the Apprenticeship framework – Key Skills certification, the National Vocational Qualification or NVQ, and the Technical Certificate (the qualification appropriate to the occupational area and sector in which the Apprenticeship takes place, which is assessed by a formal written examination). In addition, 593 Apprentices who did not complete all their framework elements (‘early leavers’) were also interviewed. The total sample (including both completers and early leavers) covered all the English regions, included both Level 2 Apprentices and Level 3 Apprentices, and was comprised of Apprentices whose Apprenticeship came to an end between 2004 and 2008.

The survey found that, for Apprentices who complete their Apprenticeship, Apprenticeship is a success. This is true both attitudinally and practically. In terms of perceptions, most Apprentices report a positive Apprenticeship experience. They value the qualifications they received, and report that Apprenticeship has given them more confidence, higher levels of work-related and social skills, more clarity about their future, and greater commitment to learning. When they are employed following Apprenticeship they have high levels of job satisfaction and Apprentices who complete mainly have positive views on future study and training. The survey also shows that outcomes for early leavers tend to be worse than for Apprentices who complete their programmes. There are clear gains therefore, for Apprentices themselves as well as for the overall efficiency of the programme, in maximising completion rates. The full report from the survey can be found at: