Apprentice Job Market Report (2024)
In this report we’ve taken a snapshot of the apprenticeships job landscape during the summer of 2024.
We’ve analysed just under 30,000 different roles to highlight some major insights across apprenticeship opportunity, location, salary and qualification level.
Read on to find out the best (and worst) places to live for apprenticeships in England.
What’s in this report?
Our summer report looks to tackle the question – What is the current apprenticeship landscape for job-seekers? – exploring what opportunities are available for those looking at apprenticeships as a way to achieve their goals.
In this report, we’ve delved into our aggregated data-set to reveal:
- How many apprenticeships are being offered above the required minimum wage.
- The best (and worst) places to live if you are searching for an apprenticeship.
- The best industries to look at for high paying apprenticeship roles.
- What levels and qualifications are most sought after by employers.
- Plus lots more…
Why apprenticeships matter
As a unique means of employment, apprenticeships offer real value to young people, career changers, and those looking to upskill by providing practical skills, work experience, and a pathway to a sustainable career.
As an employer, they provide a cost-effective way of developing a tailored, loyal workforce, contributing to the broader economy by addressing skills shortages and promoting social mobility.
In the last two decades, apprenticeships in England have expanded and broadened significantly. Factors such as government initiatives, rising university costs, specialised skills shortages and changes in technology have led to a wider range of industries offering apprenticeship programmes. This expansion has not only impacted traditional apprenticeship sectors like construction and manufacturing but also newer areas such as digital technology, finance, and business administration.
The introduction of higher and degree apprenticeships has further broadened the scope, allowing apprentices to gain qualifications equivalent to university degrees while working. Additionally, the implementation of the Apprenticeship Levy in 2017 encouraged larger employers to invest in training through apprenticeships, further boosting their availability and variety across the country. Apprenticeships have become a vital element of the early careers ecosystem.
Our methodology
We’ve aggregated public data from the Gov.uk Find an Apprenticeship service. Over the Summer of 2024, we’ve collated 4 months of apprenticeship data, analysing the combined 29,387 roles on offer to answer some big questions about the apprenticeship jobs market.
The find apprenticeships service is an online portal hosted by GOV.UK that allows employers and training providers to share their apprenticeship vacancies. It is free to use, and utilised by the largest training providers and employers in England as part of their apprenticeship dissemination strategy.
This has allowed us to discover the best and worst places to live for apprenticeship opportunities, which roles offer the highest salaries, and how these are all broken down by apprenticeship level.
The data is collected from across England and does not currently include data from Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland.
Apprenticeships at a national level
Salary visibility was really high
The first thing of note from our data was the amount of employers and training providers who are actively making their salary information available. Of the roles analysed, only 962 vacancies chose to withhold salary information or simply said their salary was ‘competitive’. This number represents about 3.3% of total roles, meaning the vast majority (96.7%) of apprentice jobs included a salary or salary range.
| Was the salary or salary range disclosed? | Total vacancies | % of total |
| No | 962 | 3.3% |
| Yes | 28,339 | 96.7% |
This is a great sign for job seekers, especially when, according to jobs platform Adzuna, the current national average number of roles that disclose salary information is less than half (47.7%) and is now sitting at the lowest recorded figure since they started tracking the metric back in 2016.
In terms of accessibility and allowing job seekers to make informed decisions about their futures, it is great to see apprentice employers bucking the trend and sharing this vital piece of information.
The apprentice minimum wage has moved the needle
As of April 2024, the apprentice minimum wage is £6.40 for anyone in the first year of their apprenticeship. This means it is a legal requirement for employers to pay at least this amount per hour of contracted work and/or training.
Of the just under 30,000 apprenticeships available in the analysed time period, 60.7% of all disclosed salaries were listed as above the apprentice minimum wage.
| Disclosed salary | Total vacancies | % of total |
| minimum wage | 11,150 | 39.3% |
| above minimum wage | 17,249 | 60.7% |
This comes in addition to the 21% increase that the apprentice minimum wage received in April 2024, from £5.28 to £6.40, a direct response to the cost of living crisis. While the national pay rise was very welcome, the apprentice minimum wage is still comparatively low, so it is encouraging to see over 60% of new vacancies offering over and above this legal threshold.
The Real Living Wage still has a ways to go
Apprenticeship wages remain a point of contention in the sector, with many advocates arguing that they still do not pay enough to allow them to be truly accessible. Given rising costs of living, including but not limited to higher rent, food, and utility costs, it is increasingly difficult for an apprentice to support themselves on an apprentice wage alone, and in many cases would require the temporary financial support of a parent or spouse.
The ‘real living wage’ is a rate calculated by the Living Wage Foundation, and is calculated in part on the current cost of living. This rate (which is currently £12 for the UK and £13.15 for those living in London), represents the wage that would be required for someone to afford to live without undue financial stress or incurring additional debt.
Of the roles analysed in our summer snapshot, only 3.6% of apprenticeship roles were advertised with wages at or above the Real Living Wage. This data would appear to back up the concerns of apprenticeship campaigners. As stated by the Living wage foundation, these rates are ‘independently-calculated based on what people need to get by‘, so we can reason that the vast majority of apprenticeship roles do not pay enough to support the apprentice as a sole-source of income.
| Disclosed salary | Total vacancies | % of total |
| real living wage | 1,018 | 3.6% |
| below real living wage | 27,381 | 96.4% |
This is a disappointing statistic. However, it is also important to note that while first year apprenticeships can legally be paid just £6.40, there are mandatory increases once an apprentice enters their second year of training, with their wage deferring to the Government National Minimum Wage age calculations. (For a full breakdown see our apprenticeship wage guide).
These requirements will mean that more apprentice roles will move closer to (if not above) the real living wage after the first year of the scheme.
The top industries for apprenticeships revealed
When broken down by industry, the summer 2024 vacancies were led by engineering & manufacturing, business, and education & early years, all of which offered a good percentage of above minimum wage roles.
On the flip side, vacancies across protective services, creative, and social care were much harder to come by.
On the salary front, a mix of industries competed for honours, with catering & hospitality, digital, transport & logistics and protective services all fulfilling over 80% of of their vacancies above the apprentice minimum wage.
Hair and beauty, on the other hand, offered more deflated financial prospects, with only 12% of roles offering above minimum wage, and not a single role hitting the Real Living Wage criteria.
| Industry category | Total vacancies | Above minimum wage | % | Real living wage |
| Engineering and manufacturing | 4,803 | 2,595 | 54.03% | 82 |
| Business and administration | 4,708 | 3,038 | 64.53% | 178 |
| Education and early years | 4,023 | 1,770 | 44.00% | 25 |
| Health and science | 3,552 | 1,651 | 46.48% | 79 |
| Sales, marketing and procurement | 3,367 | 1,824 | 54.17% | 97 |
| Construction and the built environment | 1,938 | 1,304 | 67.29% | 138 |
| Catering and hospitality | 1,914 | 1,572 | 82.13% | 41 |
| Legal, finance and accounting | 1,316 | 1,038 | 78.88% | 161 |
| Digital | 1,229 | 1,035 | 84.21% | 102 |
| Transport and logistics | 748 | 646 | 86.36% | 44 |
| Agriculture, environmental and animal care | 725 | 354 | 48.83% | 17 |
| Hair and beauty | 597 | 73 | 12.23% | 0 |
| Care services | 199 | 134 | 67.34% | 28 |
| Creative and design | 135 | 97 | 71.85% | 10 |
| Protective services | 133 | 118 | 88.72% | 16 |
Apprenticeships at a regional level
As we dive into our snapshot data across regions and cities, we have uncovered some interesting highlights around opportunity, pay and industry.
London: the apprenticeships powerhouse
For starters, London as a region was far and away the most popular location for apprenticeships. This is somewhat unsurprising given that London not only has the highest population of any city in the UK, but it is also home to the most business headquarters and offices in the nation.
In our analysis, we discovered that London was home to 2,144 different apprenticeship roles, making up 7.5% of of England’s total apprenticeships. However, to get more granular data, we have split this data into 7 segments, to give our audience a better understanding of what is available in their part of the city.
| Area | Total vacancies |
| Central London | 408 |
| South East London | 353 |
| East London | 348 |
| South West London | 308 |
| North London | 285 |
| West London | 239 |
| North West London | 203 |
| Total | 2,144 |
Splitting out London in this way, we get a slightly deeper view of the regional jobs landscape. However, major population cities continue the trend of scoring highly for apprenticeship opportunities, with Birmingham, Newcastle, Bristol, Nottingham, and Sheffield rounding off the top five.
| Location | Total apprenticeships | % of total |
| Birmingham | 1,211 | 4.1% |
| Newcastle | 848 | 2.9% |
| Bristol | 775 | 2.6% |
| Nottingham | 771 | 2.6% |
| Sheffield | 729 | 2.5% |
| Manchester | 711 | 2.4% |
| Leicester | 566 | 1.9% |
| Derby | 564 | 1.9% |
| Leeds | 549 | 1.9% |
Opportunities per capita evens the playing field
Of course, these results are somewhat expected, as we generally see those locations with the highest population also having the highest total amount of new apprenticeship opportunities available.
To combat this and get a more nuanced understanding of opportunity across these locations, we next decided to look at opportunities per capita, giving us a better understanding of the true opportunity for a job-seeker.
| Area covered | Total apprenticeships | Apprenticeships per 1,000 residents |
| Central London | 408 | 58.5 |
| Hull | 373 | 8.4 |
| Harrogate | 116 | 8.4 |
| Taunton | 269 | 8.3 |
| Bristol | 774 | 8.2 |
| Sunderland | 198 | 7.9 |
| Derby | 563 | 7.7 |
| Dudley | 316 | 7.7 |
| Walsall | 345 | 7.7 |
| Bath | 332 | 7.6 |
Central London takes the top spot of this data set. As a primarily commutable area with a small population (about 70,000), it has an enormous amount of apprenticeships available – although we expect many of these opportunities will be applied for by people willing to commute into the centre each day.
The top five outside of London are much closer in score, including Hull, Harrogate, Taunton, Bristol and Sunderland.
The best paid locations
For this analysis, we looked at the advertised salaries for roles in each location to identify the best paying locations across regions in England. We defined a ‘well paying apprenticeship’ to be any role that paid above the minimum apprentice wage as a starting salary.
From this we built a leaderboard of locations and ranked them depending on their quantity of qualifying roles.
| Location | Total vacancies above minimum wage | Total % above minimum wage |
| Birmingham | 642 | 53% |
| Bristol | 547 | 71% |
| Newcastle upon Tyne | 509 | 60% |
| Manchester | 458 | 64% |
| Nottingham | 437 | 57% |
| Sheffield | 413 | 57% |
| Leeds | 376 | 68% |
| Reading | 355 | 72% |
| Derby | 323 | 57% |
| Oxford | 318 | 77% |
The Real Living Wage by location
We conducted the same experiment for the regions, but this time looking only at roles that met the Real Living Wage criteria. Digging into the national results by individual location, Central London was again a standout for it’s high paying roles. The areas of Manchester, Bristol and Oxford came out as the top three outside of London. With all three also appearing within the above minimum wage top 10.
| Location | Real living wage and above | % above real living wage |
| Central London | 100 | 25% |
| Manchester | 46 | 6.5% |
| Bristol | 45 | 5.8% |
| Oxford | 38 | 9.2% |
| Birmingham | 33 | 2.7% |
| Leeds | 25 | 4.6% |
| Nottingham | 24 | 3.1% |
| Reading | 23 | 4.7% |
| Newcastle upon Tyne | 22 | 2.6% |
| Liverpool | 22 | 6.5% |
The best place to live for apprenticeships
Taking all of this analysis together, our final leaderboard highlights the best locations to job-hunt as an apprentice, combining the ultimate mix of availability and earnings potential.
For all of the of individual analysis, each location was ranked among its peers, from 1 through to 98. These ranks were then aggregated to give each location a final score. The location with the lowest score would be the best place to live as an apprentice job-seeker.
Bristol takes the top spot
Bristol was helped to the top spot by a combination of opportunities and earning potential, ranking 2nd overall for both above minimum wage roles and real living wage roles.
Strong ties to the defence sector, including employers like the RAF and Babcock helped to boost Bristol to the top spot, with this industry supplying lots of high paid roles across the engineering category. There were also some excellent roles on offer from Bristol City council during this timeframe.
Newcastle and Birmingham complete the top 3
Newcastle and Birmingham rounded up the top three. Newcastle’s’ vacancies held a good mix, with some exciting roles in aerospace and engineering sectors.
Birmingham meanwhile, featured heavily across education, from early years up to University, with the University of Birmingham offering up some really interesting vacancies during the snapshot.
| Location | Total Vacancies | Rank | Total per capita | Rank | above minimum wage | Rank | Real living wage | Rank | Aggregate Score |
| Bristol | 774 | 3 | 8.23 | 5 | 547 | 2 | 45 | 2 | 13 |
| Newcastle upon Tyne | 847 | 2 | 7.28 | 13 | 509 | 3 | 22 | 10 | 28 |
| Central London | 408 | 19 | 58.54 | 1 | 313 | 11 | 100 | 1 | 32 |
| Birmingham | 1,211 | 1 | 6.36 | 29 | 642 | 1 | 33 | 5 | 36 |
| Leeds | 549 | 9 | 7.09 | 15 | 376 | 7 | 25 | 6 | 37 |
| Nottingham | 771 | 4 | 6.63 | 23 | 437 | 5 | 24 | 7 | 39 |
| Manchester | 711 | 6 | 6.09 | 35 | 458 | 4 | 46 | 2 | 47 |
| Oxford | 413 | 15 | 6.73 | 21 | 318 | 10 | 38 | 4 | 50 |
Full analysis and rankings (PDF Download)
Key takeaways
The Summer 2024 Apprenticeships Job Market Report looked to provide a comprehensive snapshot of the current apprenticeship landscape in England, offering valuable insights into opportunities, wages, and industry trends.
The data highlights the continued expansion and diversification of apprenticeship programs, driven by government initiatives and evolving industry demands. While London remains the hub of apprenticeship opportunities, with the highest number of roles available, other cities like Birmingham, Bristol, and Newcastle also show significant activity.
Despite the encouraging availability of roles above the minimum wage, the report reveals a concerning gap between apprenticeship wages and the Real Living Wage, indicating that many apprentices may still struggle to achieve financial independence. This underlines the ongoing debate about the adequacy of apprenticeship pay, especially in the context of rising living costs.
Regional analysis further enriches our understanding, revealing that while London leads in total opportunities, other regions like Hull and Taunton offer strong opportunities per capita, and cities like Manchester and Oxford stand out for offering well-paid roles.
Bristol took the top spot in our coveted ‘best places to live for apprenticeships’ ranking. It is encouraging to see locations that are not only offering lots of opportunity but at a good pay standard, and we hope to see more locations follow suit in the year to come.
In conclusion, while apprenticeships remain a vital pathway to employment and skill development, particularly in high-demand sectors, there is a clear need for continued attention to wage levels to ensure these opportunities are accessible and sustainable for all. We hope this report serves as a useful resource for job seekers and employers, as we aim to navigate and improve the apprenticeship landscape in England.
