Apprenticeship

Hiring an apprentice in England

An apprentice is an employee from the first day, with the wage, holiday and contract that come with it. GOV.UK sets the frame: the person must be 16 or over, can be a new hire or someone already on your staff, and the apprenticeship lasts between 8 months and 6 years depending on its type and level.

Two documents are signed before the training starts. The apprenticeship agreement, between you and the apprentice, names the occupation, the apprenticeship, the start and end dates and the amount of training. The training plan is signed by you, the apprentice and the training provider; it sets out the schedule, what each party is expected to do and how complaints are resolved.

On pay, the National Minimum Wage apprentice rate has been £8.00 an hour since April 2026. It applies to apprentices under 19, and to those aged 19 or over in the first year of their apprenticeship. After that, the apprentice moves to the rate for their age. Time spent training or studying for the apprenticeship must be paid, and it has to come out of the working week.

Who pays for the training

The training provider’s fee is a separate cost from the wage. How much of it you carry depends on the apprentice’s age and on whether you pay the Apprenticeship Levy, which is 0.5% of the annual pay bill for employers whose pay bill is above £3 million, offset by a £15,000 annual allowance.

The split comes from the funding page on GOV.UK, which also covers the narrow case of 15-year-olds. Check it again before you sign with a provider: funding rules are revised more often than the statute.

Registered Apprenticeship in the US

In the US the term usually refers to a Registered Apprenticeship, a programme approved and validated by the U.S. Department of Labor or a State Apprenticeship Agency. The employer commits to a paid job with wage increases as the apprentice’s skills grow, structured on-the-job learning with an experienced mentor, and related classroom instruction. The apprentice finishes with a nationally recognised credential in the occupation. The wage scale is set in the programme rather than by a national apprentice rate.

Before you advertise the role

Name the mentor first. Both systems expect the apprentice to work alongside someone experienced, and that person’s time is the cost that does not show up on a funding page. Agree the training days with the provider before the start date and put them in the rota, so the off-the-job hours are protected in a busy month rather than negotiated week by week.