Under the apprenticeship funding rules, an employer chooses the provider for each apprenticeship, and all of that apprenticeship's funding goes through the one it chose.
Alternatives to Kaplan for Data Apprenticeships: A Finance Team's Case
By James Cotton · Last updated · Sources checked · 10 min read
Part of our topic guide on Data & AI Apprenticeships.
By James Cotton, Founder, iO-Sphere
The accountancy apprentices Kaplan already trains
Consider a finance team at an employer in England whose accountancy apprentices train with Kaplan. Some began the Level 7 professional route before 2026, others are at technician level, and the finance director now holds a Kaplan proposal for data apprentices too. What the team can decide turns on one rule, paragraph 207 of the funding rules, about the provider each apprenticeship's funding goes through.
Before opening the proposal, the team can look at Kaplan as the government's records show it. Kaplan Financial Limited, trading as Kaplan Financial, is on the Apprenticeship Provider and Assessment Register (APAR) as a "Main provider". The funding rules use that term, at paragraph 16, for "an organisation that is listed on the main provider route" of the register.
Find apprenticeship training (FAT), the government's service for searching apprenticeship courses and providers, carries Kaplan's own account of itself. Kaplan's description on Find apprenticeship training says: "We design and deliver engaging apprenticeships in Accountancy and Tax, Banking and Financial Services, and Data and Technology, tailored to meet industry needs and delivered by subject matter experts." Its listing there names 22 apprenticeships.
FAT also counts the people who finish. On Kaplan's Level 7 Accountancy or taxation professional course, it says "11,515 apprentices have completed this course and taken their end-point assessment with this provider since 2018". The end-point assessment is the assessment an apprentice must pass to achieve the apprenticeship.
Across all of Kaplan's courses, FAT gives "19,426 apprentices have completed a course and taken their end-point assessment with this provider since 2017", followed by its own caveat: "This is historical data and might include training this provider no longer offers." Each figure is a running total of people who completed, counted from its own start year.
What 2026 changed on the accountancy side
The first thing the team checks is what it can still start with Kaplan. Every apprenticeship runs on an apprenticeship standard, the knowledge, skills and behaviours of an occupation as Skills England publishes them, and the accountancy standard at Level 7 is where the funding changed.
Paragraph 32 of the apprenticeship funding rules for August 2026 to July 2027 funds a new Level 7 start only for an apprentice who, at the start of training, is aged between 16 and 21, or is aged between 22 and 24 and has an Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan from their local authority, is or has been in its care, or both.
Nor can the employer's levy funds, the money in its apprenticeship service account, pay for a start that rule does not fund. Paragraph 31 limits that money to apprentices employed by the employer or a connected company or charity, and paragraph 30, in the same eligibility section as paragraph 32, makes the eligibility conditions the test for any access to it.
For the Level 7 apprentices already training, Skills England's record for the standard, ST0001, says: "Any individual who started a level 7 apprenticeship before 1 January 2026 will continue to be funded through to completion."
What the accountancy apprentices learn has moved too. Version 2.0 of the Professional accounting technician standard (Level 4), which applies from 27 July 2026, includes knowledge of "Principles of data analysis, data security and cyber security to support collation, analysis and compliant handling of data and working safely online in an accounting context."
Version 2.0 of the Assistant accountant standard (Level 3), which applies from 12 August 2026, includes "Fundamentals of digital financial and accounting packages and applications, including the maintenance of key databases, spreadsheets, data analytics, and the appropriate use of data to provide information."
New levy money also has a shorter life, which bears on when the data apprentices start. The Department for Work and Pensions' apprenticeship funding guidance says funds entering an account from August 2026 expire after 12 months, while funds already in accounts before then continue to follow the 24-month expiry period.
Reading Kaplan's data proposal
The proposal on the finance director's desk names programmes, and each programme sits on a standard. Among the data and AI courses in Kaplan's FAT listing are Data technician (Level 3, ST0795), Data analyst (Level 4, ST0118) and Business analyst (Level 4, ST0117).
On the same measure FAT uses for the accountancy courses, 140 apprentices have completed Data technician and taken their end-point assessment with Kaplan since 2022, 45 have done so on Data analyst since 2020, and 37 on Business analyst since 2023.
Kaplan's September 2024 brochure, "Data and Technology Apprenticeships at Kaplan", is dated September 2024, so the team asks Kaplan for its current one. That brochure's Data User Level 3, on the Data technician standard, is meant to help employees "unlock business potential by becoming more data literate", and lists an optional Microsoft Office Specialist: Excel Associate exam and certification and a "GenAIBIZ AI Certification" among its qualifications.
The programme nearest the team's own work is the ACCA Finance Analyst Level 3. The brochure says it "takes ACCA knowledge stage and wraps them in a Data Technician apprenticeship", for "New or existing talent within an Accountancy or Finance function". Its standard rests on that 2024 document, since ACCA's page for the programme names none.
ACCA's page says "ACCA has teamed up with Kaplan to offer this Level 3 ACCA Finance Analyst apprenticeship" and that it "integrates eight modules of technical training with work-based projects". ACCA names four data modules (Microsoft Office Specialist: Excel Associate, Data Literacy, Data Analysis and Visualisation with Excel, and Databases and Data Modelling) and says the ACCA pathway covers Business and Technology, Management Accounting and Financial Accounting.
FAT's 140 on Data technician is one count, which cannot be split between the Data User and the ACCA Finance Analyst. The September 2024 brochure's Data Analyst Level 4, on the Data analyst standard, lists Excel, Power BI, SQL, Python, Tableau and R as its technologies. Its Business Analyst Level 4, on the Business analyst standard, is "technology-agnostic" and carries an "Optional BCS International Diploma in Business Analysis".
Across the line, the September 2024 brochure adds an AI credential: "We've partnered with CertNexus to provide the General Artificial Intelligence for the Business Professional (GenAIBIZ) credential." It also names Data Challenge Workshops, Learning Labs, Microsoft Office Specialist skills and Online Development Sessions.
Skills England's records list no mandatory qualification for the data standards. The Assistant accountant standard lists three (the AAT Level 3 Diploma in Accounting, the IAB Certificate in Accounting and Business and the ICB Level 3 Certificate in Bookkeeping and Accounts), while the Level 7 accountancy standard lists none.
Every paper bundled into a data programme is therefore optional, and the funding rules keep the exam and certification fees for optional papers out of what apprenticeship funding can pay for. So every proposal on the desk, ours included, must answer two questions: which standard each programme sits on, and who pays the exam fees for its optional papers.
The rule underneath the proposal
Before weighing the proposal, the team needs to know whether the data apprentices must go where the accountancy apprentices already are. The funding rules answer it at paragraph 207: "Funding for all elements of each apprenticeship will be routed through a single provider that the employer has chosen; this includes funding for English and maths."
The rule binds each apprenticeship on its own. Our reading is that an employer can therefore keep one provider for its accountancy apprentices and choose another for a data apprentice. For a data apprentice who has not yet started, picking that provider is a choice under paragraph 207, not a change of circumstances, the process the rules use to revise agreements already in place.
Choosing who trains the data apprentices
Picking the provider starts with the person and the job they will do. Someone whose main work will be data work belongs on a data standard; the data lines in the accountancy standards are learned, in the Professional accounting technician standard's words, "in an accounting context". The Data analyst standard's summary names finance among the departments where data analysts work.
At iO-Sphere, Data & AI Essentials (Level 3) runs on the Data technician standard and Advanced Data & AI (Level 4) on the Data analyst standard, and where the role's main work is data, the person keeps that job and the training fits round it.
Then the rung above. If an analyst does well, can the same provider take them on to Data engineer (Level 5)? Kaplan's listing on FAT does not include Data engineer (Level 5). The finance-led providers' listings differ: BPP Professional Education lists the accountancy standards and the data standards side by side, Data engineer (Level 5) among them.
Fitch Learning, which describes itself on FAT as delivering "a wide range of financial services apprenticeships", lists Data analyst (Level 4) as its one data standard. First Intuition Limited, First Intuition East and North Limited and First Intuition South Limited list accountancy and finance-assistant standards only.
Among the other providers that list Data engineer (Level 5) are Multiverse, QA and Cambridge Spark. iO-Sphere's Data Engineering (Level 5) runs on the Data engineer standard, and it rests on a view we hold: the people who own the work are the best placed to build the AI workflows that run on it.
Then there is the number. A finance team with one or two data apprentices has to ask who they will learn beside, when the colleagues around them are accountants. At iO-Sphere, those one or two join a cohort drawn from other employers and industries, and the employer has no minimum to meet. That cohort gives a lone analyst what their own team cannot: peers doing the same job somewhere else.
What each contract must say
Each provider the team chooses agrees its own contract for services with the employer, and paragraph 208 sets what it must include: the funding band, or the total price if that is lower, and a statement that the band will only be used directly on eligible costs. The funding band is the most the funding covers for that standard's training and assessment.
Paragraph 208.2 adds that the band and any agreed price exclude VAT. Under paragraph 209, a change to a band applies only to new starts. Paragraph 210.1 says savings from recognising prior learning, or from negotiating on cohort size, must come from within the band.
If delivery costs more than the band, paragraph 210.2 has the provider agree off-line how the employer pays the difference, and that difference must not come from the apprenticeship service account; paragraph 215.1 leaves the employer liable for any negotiated price above the band. Kaplan's price line and the alternative's face the same questions: which band or price, spent on which costs, and who pays above it.
The employer's share then turns on the apprentice's age at the start. For a start from 1 August 2026 where the apprentice is aged 25 or over, the government pays 95% of the training and assessment costs up to the band at an employer that does not pay the levy, leaving the employer 5% (paragraph 213.2), and 75% at a levy payer without enough funds (paragraph 213.1).
For an apprentice aged 16 to 24 at the start, the government pays the training and assessment costs up to the band unless the employer has levy funds to draw on, under the rule for younger apprentices.
The team's decision
This is the decision we recommend. The accountancy apprentices stay with Kaplan: those who began Level 7 before 1 January 2026 continue to completion, and a new Level 7 start goes ahead only where paragraph 32 funds it. Each data apprentice goes to the provider chosen on that person's standard and next rung, under a contract of its own.
Before anything is signed, every proposal has to say which standard each programme sits on and who pays the exam fees for its optional papers, and every price line, Kaplan's and the other provider's, is read for its band or price, its eligible-cost statement and who pays above the band. Then the team signs, one contract for each data apprentice.
Frequently asked questions
What if a data apprentice has already started with Kaplan?
Paragraph 298.8 of the rules lists a change of provider as a change of circumstances, so providers and employers must revise or replace existing agreements. Once training or assessment stops, paragraph 300 ends further payments from the apprenticeship service account, and paragraph 301.2 has the main provider agree with the employer the cost of training delivered to date. The glossary sends "Transfer to a new provider" to the same section.
Does the Level 7 age rule reach data apprenticeships?
Level 7 is the only level paragraph 32 covers, and the data standards here sit below it: Data technician at Level 3, Data analyst and Business analyst at Level 4, Data engineer at Level 5. Their funding does not turn on paragraph 32. The Level 7 Artificial intelligence (AI) data specialist standard, a route some other providers sell, comes under the same age rule as the accountancy standard.
Are the standards in this case about to change?
On 17 December 2026, Data engineer version 1.0 and the current Level 7 accountancy standard take their last new starts; a revised accountancy version replaces it from 18 December 2026. Business analyst version 1.2 takes new starts until 12 April 2027, with a revised version from 13 April 2027. Skills England's Data analyst record says the standard is being revised or adjusted, and version 1.1 remains approved meanwhile.
Will it fit your cohort?
Tell us your cohort size and what your people need to be doing by next year, and we will say whether we are the right shape, including when we are not.