April 2024 marketing apprenticeships funding and levy changes

There’s been another review

From time to time, the government sit down and re-evaluate how funding and apprenticeships work. And, one of those reviews has occurred. As a result, things like the apprenticeship levy have seen changes that will take effect on the 1st of April 2024. In this short article, we’ll discuss those changes and how they’ll affect both levy and SMEs when looking to hire marketing apprentices.

A big change for SMEs

There is some great news for SMEs. As of April 24, if your business has a wage bill of under £3mil, you will now receive 100% apprenticeship funding when you hire individuals under the age of 22. This effectively removes the 5% co-investment contribution you’d of had to pay if you’d hired individuals who were 19 and older. For our clients, this typically means that when they hire fresh graduates or college leavers with some work experience, they’ll now get the entire course paid for instead of having to pay the 5% contribution, between £400 – £550 depending on the programme. It’s not a huge amount to save, but, it effectively means that we can now do all of the recruitment and training for absolutely no cost to SMEs so long as we hire individuals that are under the age of 22.

Apprenticeships are expected to grow

People are anticipating that these changes will boost apprenticeship numbers by 20,000 or more. So, if you’re looking to hire as of April 2024, it could be a great time to start looking into apprenticeships.

If you’re not using your levy, donate it!

Previously, organisations that contributed towards the apprenticeship levy were able to transfer unused funds from their pot. This was at a total value of up to 25%. However, with the new changes taking effect in April, organisations will now be able to transfer up to 50% of their funds instead. This simply means that if an organisation has no plans to spend its levy pot, it should seriously be thinking about transferring those funds to other small businesses as part of their CSR schemes instead of those funds going to waste.

More money is being put into apprenticeships

As a result of these changes, the UK government is pledging an additional £60 million of funding to meet the potential rise in demand this coming financial year. These adjustments form a component of a broader endeavour aimed at bolstering small businesses, refining the apprenticeship framework, and stimulating greater employer engagement in offering apprenticeship positions.

Some additional reading can be found over at FE week.

So, what does this all mean for marketing apprenticeships?

Well, for anyone looking at using marketing apprenticeships to source, hire, and train their next marketing employees, it simply means that the government are offering you even more support. For us as a training provider, it also means that even more doors are being opened for our clients as we predominantly look to source college leavers, graduates, and those looking to retrain. This often means that we’re working with individuals who are in range of 18 – 21 years of age. It just means that you’ll get more bang for your buck and save that little extra bit of cash. This means that by working with us, you could be saving between £4,000 – £8,000 on your next marketing hire through apprenticeships.