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Department for Education · Explore Education Statistics: absence, SEN, attainment, apprenticeships, NEET, class sizes

Apprenticeship starts

2025/26 academic year Final

308,770starts

Apprenticeship starts was 308,770 starts in 2025/26 academic year, down 12.7% (44,730) from 353,500 in 2024/25 academic year.

▼ 12.7% · −44,730 against 2024/25 academic year (previous period)

  1. Department for Education count
  2. 2025/26 academic year
  3. published 4 August 2026
  4. 1d419801-a90e-f970-9335-a13623faccbe
  5. row “Age group=Total; Age youth / adult=Total; Apprenticeship level=Total; Funding type=Total; Provider type=Total”
  6. column “Starts”
  7. cell value 308770

2017/18 academic year to 2025/26 academic year

Apprenticeship starts: 2017/18 academic year to 2025/26 academic yearConservativeConservativeConservativeLabourLabour0100k200k300k201820202022202420262017/18 academic year: 375,760 starts · published 4 August 20262018/19 academic year: 393,380 starts · published 4 August 20262019/20 academic year: 322,530 starts · published 4 August 20262020/21 academic year: 321,440 starts · published 4 August 20262021/22 academic year: 349,190 starts · published 4 August 20262022/23 academic year: 337,140 starts · published 4 August 20262023/24 academic year: 339,580 starts · published 4 August 20262024/25 academic year: 353,500 starts · published 4 August 20262025/26 academic year: 308,770 starts · published 4 August 2026
Published valueProvisional or revisedLatestShaded bands: governments (see labels)Hover or use arrow keys to read a value

What this measures

The number of apprenticeships started in England in the academic year, across all ages, levels and funding types.

What this doesn’t measure

Whether the apprenticeship was completed: achievements are published separately.

Important caveat

Apprenticeship figures come from the Individualised Learner Record returned by providers and are revised as late returns arrive. Starts count new apprenticeships in the academic year; achievements count completions, most of which relate to starts in earlier years.

Revision history

No period of this series has been revised since it was first ingested here. Revisions are recorded automatically when a later release publishes a different figure for the same period.

Source

Publisher
Department for Education
Publication
Explore Education Statistics: absence, SEN, attainment, apprenticeships, NEET, class sizes
Release
Explore Education Statistics: releases to August 2026, published 4 August 2026
Source file
dfe_education.json
File SHA-256
301a1eda429205c90247cc4efad5564351b549d7772715a628d8459e360d8b47
Retrieved
3 September 2026
Sheet
apprenticeships
Table
1d419801-a90e-f970-9335-a13623faccbe
Row
Age group=Total; Age youth / adult=Total; Apprenticeship level=Total; Funding type=Total; Provider type=Total
Column
Starts
Cell value
308770
Geography
E92000001
Unit
starts
API
/api/metrics/apprenticeship_starts · /series · /vintages

Government periods

Change during each government, from the level inherited to the last complete period before it left office. Describes the period; does not attribute cause.

Labour 2024–337,1402022/23 academic year308,7702025/26 academic year↓ 8.4%
Conservative 2019–2024393,3802018/19 academic year337,1402022/23 academic year↓ 14.3%

Full comparison with chart

Release
Explore Education Statistics: releases to August 2026 · publication page
Last updated
4 August 2026
Next release expected
Not yet announced (estimated from the usual cadence)