Apprenticeship Funding Made Simple with Futures 

Whether you’re an SME or a large business, apprenticeships can add real value to your business – but it’s easy to get caught up in funding, fees and paperwork.  

Who can be an apprentice?  

Put simply – anyone. Apprenticeships start at Level 2 and scale up to Level 7, meaning anyone can be an apprentice, whether they’re fresh out of college or have decades of experience. 

Apprentices also don’t have to be new members of staff – you can use your apprenticeship funding to enrol your existing employees onto apprenticeships, helping to develop their skills and the quality of your workforce.  

How do you pay for an apprentice? 

If you're an SME, you pay a percentage of the cost that it takes to train an apprentice. The good news? That percentage is just 5%, with the remaining 95% being paid by the government. 

Even better – if you’re a small business with under 50 employees and the apprentice you’re training is under 19 years old, the government will fund their apprenticeship entirely.  

For large business paying more than £3 million per year in payroll bills, you’ll have been paying 0.5% of your bill into an Apprenticeship Levy – a digital fund that is kept aside specifically for training apprentices. This is then topped up 10% by the government.   

What can Futures do?  

We’re here to support you in whatever you need, including: 

• Setting up your initial apprenticeship funding account if you don’t have one 
• Organising Levy Transfers from larger companies to support SMEs to pay for apprentices 
• Advising you on how best to spend your Apprenticeship Levy if you’re not sure