Latest Government apprenticeship reforms

The government’s latest apprenticeship reforms, announced on 16 March this year, represent a significant shift in how skills and training will be funded across the UK. From September 2026, funding will be withdrawn from a number of widely used leadership and management apprenticeship standards, including the Level 3 Team Leader, Level 5 Operations Manager, and Level 6 Chartered Manager programmes, while new Foundation Apprenticeships will be introduced from April 2026 to create more accessible entry routes into employment.

Alongside this, wider changes to the Apprenticeship Levy are quietly reshaping how employers invest in training. For example, funds will now expire after 12 months rather than 24, there will be a removal of the 10% government top-up, and additional shifts in co-investment meaning businesses will ultimately need to contribute more once their levy pot runs out.

These are changes we’ve been closely involved in as a provider and a sector on the whole. Through ongoing engagement with government, UKHospitality and forums such as AELP (The Association of Employment and Learning Providers), training providers and employers have worked hard to ensure that hospitality’s voice is represented, particularly when it comes to protecting the pathways that matter most. The retention of core standards, including the Level 4 Hospitality Manager and Senior Culinary Chef apprenticeships, is a direct result of that collaboration. But just as importantly, those conversations have made one thing clear: whilst the intent behind the reforms is positive, the way they come into effect in practice will depend heavily on how industry responds.

At face value, the direction of travel makes sense. A stronger focus on supporting young people into work, particularly those at risk of becoming NEET, is something the hospitality sector fully supports. Creating clearer, more accessible pathways into employment is long overdue, and the introduction of Foundation Apprenticeships alongside new incentives for employers hiring 16–24-year-olds, is a positive step in widening access to the sector. But treating these changes as purely positive would be a mistake, particularly for an industry that relies so heavily on developing its people from within to increase staff retention.

For many employers, leadership and management apprenticeships have become one of the most effective ways to build capability from within. They’ve supported individuals stepping into their first management roles, given structure to progression, and helped businesses create more stable, confident teams over time. Removing funding from these programmes risks leaving a gap at exactly the point where retention and progression matter most, at a time when the industry can least afford it. Hospitality doesn’t have a recruitment problem in isolation, it has a progression problem, and this risks making that harder to solve. Because bringing people into hospitality is only one part of the picture. Keeping them, developing them, and giving them a reason to stay is what ultimately turns a job into a career.

There is also a more immediate consideration. A defined window now exists to enroll learners onto affected management apprenticeships before the 30 August 2026 deadline, ahead of funding being withdrawn from 1 September. For many businesses, this isn’t just about taking advantage of existing funding, but about making sure they don’t lose momentum when it comes to developing their future leaders.

Without that continued focus on progression, the risk is clear. Retention becomes harder, capability gaps widen, and the gap between entry-level recruitment and long-term careers becomes increasingly difficult to bridge. These reforms are, in many ways, a reset moment. They have the potential to make hospitality more accessible, more inclusive and better aligned with the future workforce, but that only works if entry-level opportunity is matched with ongoing development, and if employers are supported to navigate the shift in funding rather than simply react to it.