Apprenticeship starts, participation and achievements rise across England

The percentage of apprentices in England, starting, participating in and achieving an apprenticeship is continuing to rise, according to latest statistics from the DfE and DWP.

Year on year provisional data for the first two quarters of the 2025/26 academic year – August 2025 to January 2026 – show apprenticeship starts up by 11.9% to 226,620, participation levels up by 5% to 665,490 and achievements up by 16.2% to 91.750.

As in previous quarters, the number of young people starting a higher apprenticeship (covering levels 4,5, 6 and 7) grew as school and college leavers chose earning and learning over the traditional A level-then-university route. Higher level starts rose to 95,030 – an increase of 23.5% on the same two quarters of 2024/25.

Business, Administration and Law saw the highest number of starts at 70,880, while at 20,860 starts in Construction, Planning and the Built Environment were up 7.7% on the corresponding period last year. That’s good news for the government’s plan to make building and construction a cornerstone of its skills growth strategy.

Starts supported by Apprenticeship Service Account (ASA) levy funds accounted for 64.7% (146,660) of the total so far in 2025/26, while the recently introduced foundation apprenticeships represented 110 starts.

Working towards inclusion

Government moves to make learning more inclusive, also appear to be working. Learners recorded as having a learning difficulty/disability (LLDD) grew by 10.7%, to 35,660 from 32,200. This accounts for 16.4% of the cohort, compared to 16.5% in the corresponding period of 2024/25.

And the number of learners from ethnic minorities (excluding white minorities) backgrounds was also up, increasing by 25.4% to 41,960 from 33,470 in the same two quarters of last year. That’s 18.9% of the cohort, against 16.8% in 2024/25.

This data is based on information submitted by FE colleges and apprenticeship training providers in their sixth ILR (individualised Learner Record) returns for the academic year August 2025 to January 2026.

How Onefile assists with learner management

As the leading learner management platform, Onefile is pleased to see increases in these headline figures. The number of apprentices, starting, staying with and going on to complete end point assessment is good news for employers, training providers and, of course the learners themselves. And having better trained, skilled people benefits us all by boosting wider economic growth.

If these positive statistics have encouraged you to take on apprentices or expand your existing training scheme, talk to Onefile. There is so much our platform can assist you with, including collecting, submitting and tracking the ILR data mentioned above, ensuring your submissions are always accurate and on time.

Let Onefile take the strain out of learner management so you can concentrate on training your learners to achieve successful outcomes. Contact us for a discovery call.