Ways in · They pay you
On a payroll from the first week. Four years later you have a qualification and no debt. Nobody says this out loud in fifth year.
An apprenticeship is a job with training bolted onto it. You are an employee from day one. You get a wage, it goes up every year, and you split your time between working and a classroom. At the end you hold a qualification the State recognises.
The part your careers talk skipped: apprenticeships stopped being only trades some time ago. There are apprenticeships in software, insurance, accountancy, engineering and logistics. Some go to degree level. Nobody updated the slides.
It is finding an employer. No central system, no points, no offers day. You have to get a company to say yes. Ringing local firms directly works more often than people expect, mostly because almost nobody does it. Knowing somebody helps, which is the entire reason this website exists.
Do a PLC in the same field first. You come out with something to show and somebody willing to vouch for you. It is not a step backwards, whatever way people say it to you.
People start at seventeen and at thirty-four. If you get this decision wrong it is not permanent, which is more than can be said for most of what you will be told this year.
Supervision, contracting, inspection, teaching, your own company. A fair number of qualified tradespeople out-earn the graduates who felt sorry for them at eighteen.
“Apprenticeships are for people who aren't academic.”
The exams fail people every year. Different difficulty, not a smaller one.
“It's only trades.”
Software, insurance, finance, accountancy, engineering, logistics. Read the list before you decide what you are.
“You'll earn less in the end.”
You start four years earlier owing nothing. Do the sums yourself before you take anyone's word for it.
These pages tell you how it works. A person can tell you what it was actually like. Mentor profiles are open to registered schools.
How schools registerInformation checked September 2026. Requirements, fees and deadlines change — always confirm with the official sources linked above before making a decision.