Competition for degree apprenticeships quadruples as applications surge and vacancies halve

Competition for degree apprenticeships in England has roughly quadrupled in three years, according to figures from the government's Find An Apprenticeship platform obtained under freedom of information rules and reported on 19 August. The number of applicants rose from 8,100 to 21,800, while the number of positions advertised fell by almost half, from 7,300 to 3,700.

The squeeze comes from both ends at once, and the ratios show it plainly. In 2023-24 there were 2.8 applications for every Level 6 apprenticeship — the degree-level tier, where an employer pays the tuition and a salary. In the current academic year there were 11.3. Across Levels 4 to 6 together, applications per place rose from 3.6 to 10.6.

At a glance

• Applications through Find An Apprenticeship rose from 8,100 to 21,800 in three years
• Advertised places fell over the same period from 7,300 to 3,700
• There were 11.3 applications for every Level 6 place in 2025-26, against 2.8 in 2023-24
• Across Levels 4 to 6 the ratio rose from 3.6 to 10.6 applications per place
• The figures cover England only and were obtained under freedom of information rules
• The DWP has announced £8,000 hiring incentives and free apprenticeship training for 16- to 24-year-olds

Why the applications keep coming

The appeal of a degree apprenticeship has not changed; the alternative has got more expensive. An apprentice earns a wage while an employer funds the qualification, and finishes without the debt a conventional undergraduate carries. As the cost of a three-year degree has risen, that trade has looked better every year.

The route is no longer treated as a fallback for people who did not fancy university. Kieran McRae, 22, who completed one, described sitting the same lectures, labs and tutorials as the fee-paying students on his course. Vicky Orsmond, a careers adviser quoted in the same reporting, put it more bluntly: the competition is now fiercer than for many university degrees.

Why the places are disappearing

The vacancy side of the equation is the more troubling half. Employers are not advertising fewer apprenticeships because interest has fallen — it has tripled. They are advertising fewer because taking on a junior member of staff has become more expensive and the economic outlook less certain.

Hannah Larsen of the British Chambers of Commerce pointed to exactly that: higher employment costs mean recruitment is being paused. A degree apprenticeship is a multi-year commitment to an individual, funded by an employer who has to be confident about the shape of the business three or four years out. Confidence is precisely what has been in short supply.

What it looks like from the applicant's side

The numbers translate into a grinding application season. Anna Helder, 18, applied for 35 apprenticeships and described stretches of two months with no contact at all. Daniel Edwards, 21, applied for 11 and found the process demanded far more than a set of grades — employers wanted evidence of motivation, not just attainment.

The practical response has been to treat university as insurance. Applicants said they held a university place as a backup precisely because the apprenticeship competition was so fierce. That is a reversal of the way both routes were sold to this cohort at fourteen.

The policy response, and its limits

The Department for Work and Pensions has announced £8,000 hiring incentives alongside free apprenticeship training for 16- to 24-year-olds. Both measures attack the cost of taking someone on, which is the right target if employers are pausing recruitment on affordability grounds.

Whether they reach the pinch point is a different question. The most acute competition is at Level 6, where places are typically funded by large employers running structured multi-year schemes rather than by small firms weighing up a single hire. An incentive that persuades a small business to take on one apprentice is worth having, but it does not obviously add to the 3,700 degree-level places that 21,800 people are chasing.

What happens next

Application ratios are a lagging indicator: they describe a hiring market as it was, not as it will be. The figure to watch is the vacancy count in the autumn recruitment rounds, when employers open their 2027 intakes. If places recover, this year reads as a squeeze in a weak labour market. If they do not, the gap between how the route is promoted and how many people it can actually absorb becomes a policy problem rather than a statistical one.

For this year's applicants that distinction is academic. They are competing for a shrinking number of places against a field four times deeper than the one their predecessors faced three years ago, and the advice most of them are being given — apply to university as well — is an admission of how long the odds have become.