At Calderdale College, we’re passionate about not only showing business owners how beneficial alternative routes into work, such as apprenticeships, can be, but we’re also committed to supporting businesses through the process of hiring an apprentice, whether it’s their first time or their thirtieth!

To be able to provide as much support as we can, it’s crucial that we stay in contact with business owners from a range of sectors, helping us to understand their requirements when it comes to apprenticeships. To give us a better insight into how employers currently view apprenticeships, meaning we can further personalise the support we give them, we conducted our own research to find out more.

Here are the top five things that you might not know about apprenticeships…

1. Demand is on the rise

In the next one to three years, 78% of employers plan to hire either more or the same number of apprentices, with this figure expected to rise to 84% after three years’ time.

A lot of business owners are recognising that apprenticeships are no longer limited to a particular sector, and that apprentices can bring a lot of value into a business. Some sectors that are particularly keen to offer more apprentices are professional services, early years and education, and construction.

2. Apprenticeship benefits are multiple

The employers that we surveyed acknowledged that there were multiple benefits to hiring an apprentice. Bringing in new learning and skills was the number one (48%), as apprentices can introduce their college learning into the business and help establish new ways of working.

Additional benefits that employers identified were a reduced staff turnover, higher motivation to develop, and smaller hiring and training costs.

3. Although some benefits are still unknown

Over one third of employers have said they would like to better understand what funding is available to them to help with the cost of hiring apprentices, as many don’t realise how much financial support is out there!

For example, if you’re an employer with an annual gross wage bill of less than £3m, the government will cover up to 95% of apprenticeship course fees and 100% for apprentices aged 16 – 18 years old (if you employ less than 50 employees), making it a really cost-effective route for upskilling your business.

4. There are still some perceived barriers

48% of employers said that hiring apprentices is too time consuming, and it was stopping them from welcoming more into the workforce. There were also concerns about the cost involved in hiring an apprentice and paying for their training.

Additionally, they think that they’d find the process complicated and difficult to navigate on their own, or wouldn’t even be sure how to start! There were also concerns as to whether they understood apprenticeships well enough to be able to recruit the right people into the business.

5. But support is on hand!

Fortunately, we have a solution! At Calderdale College, we run multiple initiatives, including our Collaborative Apprenticeships project which provides support to businesses when it comes to introducing apprenticeships.

These involve providing dedicated support to understand your apprenticeship needs and providing an end-to-end service from advertising to hiring. We even run free training courses to guide you through the process of introducing an apprentice into your business for the first time, and helping you navigate the government’s Digital Apprenticeship Service (DAS).

For more information about how the Collaborative Apprenticeships project can help you, click here or

contact apprenticeships@calderdale.ac.uk.