What apprenticeships are available and which are most in demand?

Data from the UK government shows that apprenticeships have grown in demand over the last 12 months, with apprenticeship starts increasing by 8.7% from 284,190 reported for the last academic year to 308,770 for the period covering August 2025 to April 2026. Although data from a recent Enginuity report indicates a mixed picture in recent years, the outlook is beginning to brighten.

Apprenticeships offer the opportunity to earn while you learn, and more young people are beginning to recognise the potential of a direct route into a career. Employers across a variety of industries offer them for many roles, which means there are a lot of options available for someone considering an apprenticeship.

What apprenticeships can I do?

Learners can earn a qualification between level two and level seven when completing an apprenticeship.

• Level 2: Foundation or Intermediate
• Level 3: Advanced
• Level 4 or 5: Higher
• Level 6 or 7: Degree

Learners don’t need any qualifications to apply for a foundation apprenticeship – in most circumstances these are for applicants aged 16-21.

For some apprenticeships, employers may request learners hold a prior qualification such as GCSE English or Maths at grade 4 or above, or a Level 2 equivalent. The employer will assess the learner’s prior learning and support them to attain these qualifications.

These details will be given on the application so learners can see the requirements before they apply.

See the UK Government website for more information on becoming an apprentice.

Become an apprentice: How apprenticeships work - GOV.UK

What apprenticeships are available?

Apprenticeships cover a wide range of roles within industries across the entire economy. As well as helping people find a route into their desired career, it also helps employers recruit talent that they can train into specialist roles, exploring new opportunities or enhancing existing skillsets.

An apprenticeship could be office-based and centred on learning administrative and finance skills; it could take place in a learning environment like a school; or involve more hands-on work like that in a repair shop, construction site, or factory.

The variety of work depends on what apprenticeships are currently on offer in the local area.

Where do I find apprenticeships?

The ‘find an apprenticeship’ service on the GOV.UK website shows learners what apprenticeships are available. Apprenticeship vacancies are also posted on job listings websites.

Users can find an apprenticeship on the GOV.UK website by selecting roles from the business areas that interest them. These are separated at first into the below:

• Business, finance and public services
• Creative and service industries
• Environment and agriculture
• People and care
• Technical and engineering

Under each of these, users will find individual options to tick, each of which contains examples of specific roles within the field.

For example, under ‘technical and engineering’ there are three options:

• Construction and building (e.g., bricklayer, carpenter, architect)
• Digital (e.g., software engineer, data scientist, cloud engineer)
• Engineering and manufacturing (e.g., auto-care technician, welder, rail engineer).

The ‘find an apprenticeship’ website then provides the choice of listing all available apprenticeships across England, or to search by location, after which it will list out all active roles sorted by start date, pay, or by time added.

Which apprenticeships are most in demand in the UK?

There were a total of 353,500 apprenticeship starts during the 2024/25 academic year. Data from the government website shows that at the end of the 2024/25 academic year, the subjects with the highest numbers of apprenticeship starts were:

• Business, Administration and Law (112,500)
• Health, Public Services and Care (95,120)
• Engineering and Manufacturing Technologies (45,120)
• Digital Technology (27,380)
• Retail and Commercial Enterprise (25,770).

These top five starts make up about 86.5% of all apprenticeship starts in 2024/25.

The occupational routes with the most apprenticeship starts in 2024/25 were:

• Business and Administration (71,440)
• Education and Early Years (36,280)
• Care Services (34,540)
• Construction and the Built Environment (33,230)
• Engineering and Manufacturing (31,680).

(Source: Apprenticeship starts, gov.uk)

Which apprenticeships pay the most?

The apprenticeships offering candidates the highest wages tend to be at larger companies for apprenticeships at Level 6 or 7, in specialist sector roles such as finance or aerospace.

There are minimum hourly rates for an apprentice depending on their age and what year of study they are in, which we'll explore in an upcoming post.

Find more of our apprenticeship guides on the EAL Learner Hub.

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