Backed by the Mayor of London, major employers join project to create early years apprenticeships across the city

Backed by the Mayor of London, major employers across the city are coming together to create new apprenticeships to help improve the quality and availability of early years provision in London.  

Through a new pilot project led by LAIN (the London Anchor Institutions’ Network), major organisations in London will donate unspent apprenticeship levy to fund early years apprenticeship training for apprentices in nurseries and pre-schools across the city.  

The early years sector is key to giving young children a positive start in life and to enabling parents to work. But it is facing a range of challenges including rising operational costs, and record levels of vacancies and skills shortages that impact on the availability and quality of provision where it is most needed.  

To help address this, the pilot aims to transfer a minimum of £350,000 of apprenticeship levy from major employers to create at least 50 new early years apprenticeships at a range of levels.   

Employers can get involved with the pilot by committing as little as £4k worth of their unspent apprenticeship levy to create a Level 2 apprenticeship training opportunity.  

LAIN has appointed The Early Years Alliance as its delivery partner on the pilot and will focus on apprenticeship creation in parts of the city where demand for nursery places outstrips supply.  

Michael Freeston, Director of Quality Improvement at the Early Years Alliance, said: “We’re delighted to be partnering with the Mayor and London’s anchor institutions to make sure unspent apprenticeship levy is put to its best use.  Access to quality and affordable early years provision is crucial to ensuring the best possible start in life for young children, and is also key to helping more parents (primarily mothers) to enter and stay in the labour market.  

“But with expanded government entitlements to free early years provision, demand is outstripping availability. The sector needs more qualified practitioners in place fast. A concerted effort to use unspent apprenticeship levy to support training and job creation in the sector is hugely welcome, and we’re proud to be a part of this pilot phase.” 

Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London said: “I’m delighted that London’s  anchor institutions are joining forces to support much needed apprenticeships in the early years sector.  

“We know that access to early years education leads to better educational outcomes for children long-term and we want London’s families to thrive, not just survive. The government’s free childcare hours for eligible families helps with that, but only if parents and carers can access quality provision. If you aren’t already involved, please do sign up to help provide young children with a positive start in life as we continue building a better and fairer London for everyone.” 

Every organisation with a payroll of over £3m is legally bound to pay the apprenticeship levy. Organisations have the option to draw this down to fund apprenticeship training for new and existing employees, but can transfer up to 50 per cent of their levy to fund apprenticeship training for apprentices in other organisations.  

To get involved with the pilot please email: londonapprenticeships@eyalliance.org.uk