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Questions on apprenticeships

I'm interested in apprenticeships but have some questions about how they work.
1. Is it possible to leave an apprenticeship after a few months, before it has been completed and any qualifications obtained? Will the employer and training provider allow this?

2. If I were to apply to an apprenticeship whilst already being employed at a different apprenticeship, I would explain to my new prospective employer that I plan to leave my current apprenticeship role in the event that I get hired, as I wouldn't be able to fully complete my current apprenticeship in time. Will this disadvantage my application, e.g. the employer would have doubts that I'm going to stay at the company, work and study for the full duration of the apprenticeship contract?

3. Does the 'working week' in apprenticeship listing descriptions include time spent in off-the-job training/studying, or do I need to calculate 20% of the weekly working hours listed and add it on to figure out the total combined number of hours the apprentice would be expected to work and study? Thanks

(edited 6 months ago)

Reply 1

Chris2892

1. You can quit an apprenticeship whenever you want, but it officially ends when you complete both your academic (uni/college) and your competency assessment (NVQ/EPA). The combination of both certifications will earn you a third, your apprenticeship certification. If you quit early you will only receive partial or no certification.

2. Any potential employer will look at your employment history to gauge risk. The majority of cost of an apprenticeship is getting staff to train, not college/uni or your wage. They won’t want to dedicate resource to your development if they don’t anticipate you’ll yield a return on the investment. Saying that, you can be transparent and state how you’ve identified what you don’t want to do, and evidence how the new role is the right fit.

3. 20% off the job training is a requirement of your competency assessment. It includes any training, formal study, or other educational events out of normal workplace duties. Like university, college, external training, networking events, conferences etc., your training provider would clarify on this. Typically college/university doesn’t cover this alone; you don’t attend college/uni to the full 20% of your apprenticeship working hours. It’s a sum of 20% of the full duration of your apprenticeship working hours, again, get clarity from your training provider.

(edited 6 months ago)

Reply 2

NightCap

Original post by Chris2892

2. Any potential employer will look at your employment history to gauge risk. The majority of cost of an apprenticeship is getting staff to train, not college/uni or your wage. They won’t want to dedicate resource to your development if they don’t anticipate you’ll yield a return on the investment. Saying that, you can be transparent and state how you’ve identified what you don’t want to do, and evidence how the new role is the right fit.

3. 20% off the job training is a requirement of your competency assessment. It includes any training, formal study, or other educational events out of normal workplace duties. Like university, college, external training, networking events, conferences etc., your training provider would clarify on this. Typically college/university doesn’t cover this alone; you don’t attend college/uni to the full 20% of your apprenticeship working hours. It’s a sum of 20% of the full duration of your apprenticeship working hours, again, get clarity from your training provider.

Thanks for the answers. Yeah I was wondering if anyone has switched apprenticeships and if the experience of applying and getting an offer was particularly more difficult.

https://www.findapprenticeship.service.gov.uk/apprenticeship/1000197888 so here for this apprenticeship the total hours are 37. I'd assume it includes average of the job training hours because that doesn't divide by 5 well. Or does it not include off the job hours?

Reply 3

Chris2892

Original post by NightCap

37 hours is how many hours a week you’re contracted to. 20% OTJ would be taken from that, not in addition.

20% will give you the number of hours you need, you don’t need it to be 1 day a week. As an example, if you went to a 1 week 40h training course, you’d just deduct the 40h.

At the end of the apprenticeship you would need to provide a record of all your OTJ training that sums to or above 20%.