Closing the door on opportunity? The future of architect apprenticeships

In May, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson announced that from January 2026, government funding for new level 7 apprenticeships, including the architect route, will end for anyone over 21.

Architecture apprentices typically progress to level 7, the Masters-equivalent stage, after completing a four-year level 6 architectural assistant apprenticeship. Removing funding for this stage will effectively end all public support for Masters-level architectural training and could spell the end of the qualification itself.

The decision, though long rumoured, came as a shock to hundreds of apprentices currently working towards level 6, to the 13 universities teaching level 7 architecture courses, and to the large firms that rely on Apprenticeship Levy funds to cover training costs. It is a heavy blow to a system that had only just begun to take root in the profession and win widespread support.

For students, apprenticeships have offered a vital alternative to traditional study, allowing them to earn while they learn rather than graduate with debts that can reach six figures. For employers, they have become an important way to train future designers and embed real-world skills and practice values within their teams.

Figures from across the profession have spoken out in opposition to Phillipson’s decision. RIBA president Chris Williamson was among the first to defend the qualification, describing it as essential to the future of the profession. “It is understandable that the government will want to assess how the apprentice scheme is working, and to ensure that opportunities are available for all,” he said. “We need to continue to lobby hard for architecture to have its share of funding and to increase diversity into the profession.”

Drawing on his experience at the London School of Architecture, the University of East London, and with students at Weston Williamson, Williamson emphasised the value and rigour of the programme. “I know from involvement at the London School of Architecture and the University of East London, and from the students on level 6 and 7 courses at Weston Williamson, how important the apprentice route is – and how demanding it is. We have to support this vital route into architecture and also to promote others through lifelong learning.”

At the University of Cambridge, Timothy Brittain-Catlin, course leader for degree apprenticeships, warned that the move runs counter to the direction of travel set out by the profession’s own regulator. “Ironically, it is clear from the Architects Registration Board’s (ARB’s) recent Professional Practice Experience Commission report that the regulator envisages a future very similar to the models that we have been developing for apprenticeships. The profession and its representatives should push back against this backward step.”

RIBA chair Jack Pringle also issued a clear warning about the practical impact on employers. “From large architecture practices, who pay into the Apprenticeship Levy, to small practices who rely on the Levy to be able to hire apprentices, feedback from our members is clear: without Levy funding, many practices will be unable to employ level 7 architect apprentices,” he said.

Pringle explained that larger firms would “essentially be paying twice – once into the Levy, and then again for the level 7 apprentice,” making the route financially untenable. Smaller practices, he added, would lose a crucial opportunity to bring new talent into the profession. “Smaller architecture practices that don’t pay into the Levy, but make use of it, would lose the ability to recruit apprentices as they wouldn’t be able to afford the additional cost of tuition. This would also reduce opportunities for small practices to contribute to the profession’s future growth and innovation.”

For current and aspiring apprentices, the funding cuts have created uncertainty and frustration.

Level 6 apprentice Isha Ahmed, who works at WW+P while studying at London South Bank University, says the decision threatens to derail her progress. “I joined the apprenticeship at 18 and I’m now in my third year, with plans to move on to level 7 next year,” she explains. “Coming from a background where traditional university routes weren’t financially viable, this was the only accessible way for me to pursue architecture. Without it, becoming an architect would have been out of reach.”

Ahmed says the proposed defunding for over-21s could leave her and others stranded mid-route. “Without an exemption for current learners like me, who started level 6 under 22 with the clear intention to progress, I fear for my future career prospects.”

At the other end of the training pathway, Emily Cater, a level 7 apprentice at London Metropolitan University, echoes those concerns. Having completed her undergraduate degree through the traditional route, she values the apprenticeship model for combining study and practice. “It offered studying with practice-based experience, which is crucial for such a practical and knowledgeable field,” she says. “With these cuts, architecture will again become inaccessible to those who can’t afford full-time study.”

Cater, who also mentors students through the diversity initiative Narrative Practice, argues that level 7 funding is more important than level 6. “The level 7 apprenticeship combines Part 2 and 3, allowing students to qualify as architects on completion. It’s cost-effective and produces more proficient graduates thanks to continuous practice-based learning.” However, she questions whether the level 6 programme offers the same value, noting that many students “don’t know what architecture entails when they start and may withdraw completely.”

Why has this happened?

The apprenticeships are casualties of government finances that don’t add up, a wider apprenticeship system that hasn’t delivered, and an overly complex, poorly designed Apprenticeship Levy. The Levy has encouraged firms to view their payments as their own funds rather than as contributions to a shared pot. (It is paid by all firms with a payroll of £3 million or more at a rate of 0.5% of their annual pay bill.) This perception has led many large companies to rebadge existing graduate schemes as higher-level apprenticeships so they can be paid for using reclaimed Levy money.

As the professions caught on, more and more higher-level apprenticeships emerged in law, accountancy and management. The public sector followed suit, using Levy funding for in-career training for senior NHS managers. Funding apprenticeship training through general taxation, rather than a clawback system, might have been a simpler and more effective approach.

By 2023/24, 36% of apprenticeship starts were at levels 4 to 7. The most popular level 7 courses were in accountancy, senior leadership (essentially a truncated MBA), advanced clinical practice and law. Architecture ranked tenth, with around 250 candidates.

These top-level degree apprenticeships are also among the most expensive to deliver. By 2021/22, about half a billion pounds – roughly one-fifth of the total apprenticeship budget – was being spent on levels 6 and 7. Much of that funding ended up paying for training that would have happened anyway, rather than for the intended productivity-boosting programmes for NEETs (young people Not in Education, Employment or Training). Meanwhile, employers’ own spending on other forms of training has dropped by a fifth in real terms since 2011.

The rationale for defunding level 7 apprenticeships, then, is that money is needed elsewhere – specifically for lower-level training in skills the country more urgently requires. On one level, this logic holds: ‘architect’ is no longer on the immigration skills shortage list, while bricklayers, carpenters, roofers and retrofit specialists are. The Department for Education (DfE) has pledged investment in a range of new ‘foundation apprenticeships’ and other schemes to fill these gaps, from funding local construction training to launching 13 new level 2 construction courses.

In an era of tight public finances – and when most students graduate with debts of £50,000 to £100,000 – a fully funded higher-education route that offers both a salary and free tuition was always likely to come under pressure. Yet a strong case remains for the unique value of on-the-job learning and for the critical role of building designers in the government’s own ‘Build, Build, Build!’ agenda.

A key selling point of apprenticeships has always been their potential to widen participation and increase diversity. Yet, across the board, it’s not clear that this is what has happened.

Announcing the change, Bridget Phillipson argued that the data did not justify exempting higher-level apprenticeships from defunding. “Skills England [the new body responsible for skills training – yet more change and complexity] did not find a strong enough economic rationale to exempt a small group of level 7 apprenticeship standards from defunding,” she said. “While level 7 apprenticeships can be a valuable route for some disadvantaged learners, a significant proportion are from non-deprived backgrounds and are significantly less likely to be deprived than apprentices at lower levels.”

Research by the Sutton Trust and the Social Market Foundation supports this view. It shows that “in comparison with (often privileged) undergraduate students, degree apprentices are half as likely to have received free school meals, half as likely to be from minority-ethnic backgrounds, and less likely to have a disability. Just 13% of degree apprenticeships go to those in the most deprived fifth of neighbourhoods, only half the participation rate of the most affluent fifth.” The organisations warn that “such unequal access appears to be worsening.”

Data specific to architecture apprenticeships is limited, but some trends can be inferred. Minority-ethnic candidates make up about 20% of level 7 apprentices, and women 46%, suggesting reasonable balance on both fronts. Socioeconomic diversity, however, appears weaker. Government data, which divides neighbourhoods into five deprivation quintiles, shows candidates from deprived areas remain underrepresented. Media coverage celebrating “apprentices earning £100,000 while they get a ‘free’ degree” – as The Times and The Telegraph have put it – hints at growing middle-class capture of the scheme.

Based on amalgamated data for all ‘Construction, Planning and the Built Environment’ apprenticeships, candidates from the least deprived areas continue to dominate. If the sector is serious about widening participation, more work is needed to attract and support students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

For Timothy Brittain-Catlin, this regression is deeply troubling. “There is an element of class war in the announcement – an assumption that architecture is a middle-class profession, and that its trainees can pay for themselves. But that is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Widening participation is a long-term project and we were making a breakthrough.”

He adds that apprenticeships were beginning to open doors to a far more diverse cohort. “We wanted to draw into our courses not only young recent graduates, but also those experienced people, wherever they are and at whatever stage in life, who had, for one reason or another, never managed to become qualified architects. The great thing about the apprenticeship idea was that we were creating a melting pot of talented people of all ages and backgrounds.”

Brittain-Catlin points to the particular benefits for those outside major cities. “There are distinct groups who can benefit from this model – these include graduates in rural areas who want to remain working in a village or small town where they have found stable, congenial work; or those who found and took a good job, perhaps with a developer, before qualifying, and are now stuck without a professional title.”

He believes that visibility and normalisation are key to the model’s future. “Once apprenticeships become more apparent to school leavers and start to become normalised, it will become more obvious to applicants and employers alike that this is a decent, respected route for anyone.”

There has been speculation that level 7 apprenticeships might continue if apprentices fund their own tuition fees. The government has confirmed that level 6 apprentices will be able to apply for postgraduate student loans for their level 7 courses. But, as things stand, this change is unlikely to secure the future of architecture apprenticeships.

At current rates, Student Loan Company (SLC) postgraduate loans fall far short of covering university fees for level 7 apprenticeship courses. The maximum postgraduate loan available is £12,858, while Apprenticeship Levy funding per candidate is capped at £21,000 – and some courses already exceed that amount. This leaves a considerable gap between loan values and tuition costs.

Currently, employers are expected to meet any shortfall between the £21,000 Levy funding and the actual fees charged by architecture schools. In future, the gap between tuition costs and available postgraduate loans would fall either to students or their employers – a clear deterrent for both.

By contrast, students on the traditional academic route can access more generous SLC undergraduate loans for both Parts 1 and 2, thanks to a specific policy exemption. This can leave them with debts approaching £100,000, but it also means they can fully fund their studies. The same flexibility does not apply to level 7 apprenticeships.

Although apprentices earn a salary while they study, many level 6 candidates may now consider switching to the traditional route for Part 2 instead of progressing to level 7 – but that option is currently unavailable to them.

Jack Pringle explains: “Future level 6 apprentices may not be able to access undergraduate student funding if they wish to complete their Masters/Part 2 courses on a taught (rather than apprenticeship) route. Receiving undergraduate student finance is predicated on having completed a full-time undergraduate architecture degree. But level 6 apprenticeships are not included in this policy.

“Unless the rules are changed, apprentices moving on to Part 2 will receive a smaller loan than those who have come through the traditional route. This will disincentivise level 6 architecture apprenticeships, reducing options for students and significantly impacting participation – particularly for those from backgrounds traditionally underrepresented in higher education.”

Giving apprentices access to full SLC undergraduate loans for level 7 would allow those who want to stay on the apprenticeship route to cover their course fees. But private-sector student loans remain scarce and expensive, so that path seems equally unlikely.

Complicating matters further, the new Growth and Skills Levy – which will replace the Apprenticeship Levy – will allow firms to spend up to half their Levy funds on short courses and non-apprenticeship training. Larger practices may therefore choose to divert funding away from apprenticeships altogether.

What happens next?

For those already enrolled on level 7 apprenticeships, government tuition funding is secure until the end of their course. But Timothy Brittain-Catlin says the Department for Education’s handling of the issue “has been hopeless.” He argues the decision was made “by people who have no real understanding of how architectural training and practice work. Apprentices are tax-paying, productive members of their practices, but now architecture trainees will be back in university full-time and will have to take out student and maintenance loans, while offices will have to seek short-term replacements and train them from scratch.

“Apprenticeship courses will be closed down before universities can come up with alternatives. I just don’t think the civil servants and think-tank people behind the abolition have any sense of how architectural training works and how long it takes to get new courses approved by universities and the ARB. They clearly didn’t realise that architectural training has been funded as a five-year process for decades.

“So they were also unaware of the terrible impact of abolition on level 6 apprentices. One of the most catastrophic aspects of the sudden abolition is the fact that we don’t have time to work out new solutions, so there will be a disastrous hiatus for architecture schools and of course in new architects qualifying – just as the government infrastructure and New Town plans come onstream.”

Adding to the uncertainty, architecture education is already being reshaped under the ARB’s new outcomes for Masters/Part 2 courses. Jack Pringle notes: “Universities are already working to either revise or develop new courses to meet the ARB’s new outcomes for Masters/Part 2 programmes by the end of 2028. RIBA is also pressing ARB for further information on its timescale for changes recommended to Professional Practical Experience and Assessing Competence, as this is impacting the ability of universities to revise courses, including apprenticeships.

“There is also a long lead-in time for universities to satisfy their own internal course validation processes and, for this reason, RIBA is pushing the government for a longer transition period on level 7 defunding.”

At Cambridge, Brittain-Catlin is already developing a part-time course that mirrors the current apprenticeship as closely as possible, with the hope that employers and students can co-fund places. “But we are aware this won’t be feasible for many architecture schools,” he admits.

A range of routes into the profession has always been a strength, helping to widen access and attract students who learn best through different modes. Apprenticeships, in particular, have become highly valued by both employers and trainees for their hands-on, practice-based experience.

It would be a great loss if architecture apprenticeships were to disappear as collateral damage from failings elsewhere in the system. Preserving this route will require collective effort – from professional bodies, employers, universities and apprentices themselves – to ensure it remains a viable, respected pathway into the profession.