—By Samantha Sawyer, CEO of Accelerate People
The apprenticeship funding rules for 2025–26 confirm what’s been in the air for months: from January 2026, most Level 7 apprenticeships will no longer be publicly funded for learners aged 22 and over. It’s a line in the sand for the sector, one that forces employers, training providers, and policy leaders to rethink how we invest in skills at the highest level.
Removing public funding at Level 7 isn’t a niche policy tweak. It’s a reallocation of value. It tells us, very clearly, that the government now sees entry and mid-level apprenticeships as a higher return on investment and expects employers to take on more responsibility when it comes to senior talent development.
For some, that makes strategic sense. The apprenticeship budget is not unlimited, and there’s a growing need to widen access and improve completion rates at lower levels. But let’s not mistake a shift in funding for a shift in need. The demand for highly skilled professionals hasn’t gone anywhere. If anything, it’s increasing and it’s now up to us as a sector to decide how we meet it.
So, the question becomes: how do we make this reallocation work? How do we avoid a regression, where progression pathways narrow, employer investment stalls, and the apprenticeship brand loses its claim to being a full-career route?
It starts with clarity. Employers need a clear cost-benefit picture. Providers need commercial models that align with outcome-driven training. And assessment organisations need to ensure that rigour and credibility remain uncompromised, especially when the financial structures shift.
At Accelerate People, we’re already helping partners think through these questions. For some, it’s about utilising Level 6 standards and making sure that full value is delivered there, ensuring that learners leave with both competence and headroom to grow. For others, it’s about reframing Level 7 programmes as strategic investments in leadership, transformation, and regulatory readiness. The removal of public subsidy means these apprenticeships need to work even harder but that doesn’t mean they stop being valuable.
We also need to be careful not to let modular training creep in as a default replacement. Stackable credentials, CPD and micro-credentials all have their place, but none are a like-for-like substitute for a rigorous, work-based qualification rooted in occupational competence. If we’re not intentional, we risk building a progression system that’s fractured, transactional, and harder for learners to navigate.
The next 16 months give us space to act but not to wait. Now is the time to engage employers, remodel programmes, and secure the future of high-level skills investment. And we should be clear: reallocating funds should never mean lowering ambition. It’s an opportunity to be more strategic, more intentional, and more aligned with the future workforce we’re trying to build.
We’ve always said apprenticeships are a whole-career model. If we want that to remain true, we need to ensure that Level 7 still has a place, even when the funding model changes.
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Resilience in the Face of Reform: Learnings from England's Lionesses. Stay tuned for next week!
Apprenticeship Insights: is a ClickZ Media publication in the Education division