Which universities are offering apprenticeship units?

The growth and skills levy was one of Labour’s few manifesto commitments around post-compulsory education and skills – at one point ministers were suggesting that as much of 50 per cent of an employer’s levy funds could go towards short courses rather than apprenticeships.

This didn’t happen. Perhaps concerned at forecasts of falling apprenticeship numbers, the rollout of what have been dubbed “apprenticeship units” has been carefully controlled – the subject areas available for these short training programmes range from AI leadership to welding, with little in between.

The trifecta of AI leadership short courses available are the only ones at level 5 (the rest are at 2 and 3, with a focus on construction and clean energy). Each is a minimum 30 hours and qualifies for £750 in funding, and they are restricted to learners aged 19+ who are already in employment.

The three units are:

• AI strategy and opportunity
• AI adoption, procurement and governance
• AI delivery and organisational transformation.

With other higher-level opportunities being withdrawn – particularly level 7 apprenticeships and the soon-to-be-defunded management apprenticeships – we might expect universities with a track record of apprenticeship provision to get involved here.

And that does appear to be the case. The Find Apprenticeship Training database currently has just shy of 100 providers available for the three AI units, and a good share of these are universities (and there are various other higher education providers involved, but to keep things simple I’ve stuck to those with university title).

It could be that other universities are in the process of applying or waiting for their details to get added to the site, but for now the universities listed as being available are: University of Hertfordshire, University of Nottingham, University of Reading, London South Bank University, Sheffield Hallam University, Teesside University, University of Warwick, Aston University, Newcastle University, University of West London, University of East London, University of Buckingham, Northeastern University London, University of Greater Manchester, Brunel University, Leeds Beckett University, and University of Suffolk.

Most (though not all) are offering the units online, most (though again not all) will offer them in-person at one of their own locations, and a handful give the option for the units to be studied at the learner’s workplace.

DfE and Skills England have previously hinted that there could be further units rolled out in the future, but you’d have to expect that for now the emphasis will be on seeing how it all goes with the initial limited spread.

Given that one of the concerns around funding short courses through the levy has always been that employers will opt for “dead weight” provision – that is, training they would have funded or arranged anyway – then the heavy emphasis on AI for business is perhaps on the risky side.

But there are probably some interesting directions that those universities getting involved can take these courses in. The wider worry remains that there is not much funding on offer, and a lot of competition in this area from established CPD sources, plus plenty of cheap and generic online learning that may be more attractive to employers looking for a quick fix with fewer strings attached.