In England in 2024/25, 43.8% of apprenticeship starts, where length of employment was known, were by people more than a year into their job. Your next apprentice may already work for you.
Apprenticeships for Existing Employees: How to Put Current Staff on a Funded Data or AI Programme
By James Cotton · Last updated · 14 min read
Part of our topic guides on Data & AI Apprenticeships and Government-Funded Data & AI Training.
By James Cotton, Founder, iO-Sphere
Most of what an employer needs to know about training someone already in post is set down in the apprenticeship funding rules for August 2026 to July 2027, published by the Department for Work and Pensions, and in minimum wage law. Each answer below quotes the rule or the figure it rests on, so a manager and the employee can check it for themselves.
Can someone you already employ become an apprentice?
GOV.UK's guide to employing an apprentice settles it in one line: "Apprentices can be new or current employees." DWP's guidance on taking on an apprentice adds that the apprentice should "work in a role that is relevant to their apprenticeship", with enough paid hours each week to complete the training.
The funding rules treat it as a common case. The practical period, "the part of the apprenticeship where evidenced learning is delivered", may begin on the apprenticeship start date, and para 72.4.1 notes: "This is common for existing members of staff already employed in their job role when they become an apprentice and begin their training."
The test at the centre of it is para 63. After its initial assessment of the person, the provider "must be able to evidence that the individual requires significant new knowledge, skills and behaviours in order to be occupationally competent in their job role", and there must be evidence that the employer agrees. Knowledge, skills and behaviours, or KSBs, are the requirements each apprenticeship standard sets for its occupation.
Para 65.4, in part, requires provider and employer to agree that there is "a clear and substantial link between the selected apprenticeship standard and the individual's primary day-to-day occupational duties and purpose", which in our view leaves the duties, whatever the job is called, to decide who goes on which programme and which Level 4 standard fits.
An employee weighing up their own role can work through the same test from their side, and when someone applies to us first, our admissions team helps them build the case and prepare the conversation with their employer (how employers take part).
The provider must also review the person's prior learning and experience, which para 36.2 says includes "competence gained from prior work experience, particularly where the apprentice is an existing employee". For anyone aged 19 or over, that means checking their personal learning record, if they have one, and running a skills scan against the standard's KSBs.
What the scan shows they already know comes out of their off-the-job training, the paid working time set aside for learning towards the standard, and out of the price. The price must fall by at least half the share already known, measured from the funding band maximum, the most funding will pay for the standard: with 30% already covered, at least 15% comes off (para 39.3.2).
If less than 8 months or 187 hours of content would remain, the person is "ineligible for apprenticeship funding" (para 39.1.1). GOV.UK adds that any reduction in training must be agreed with the provider and the apprentice during the initial assessment.
Some people cannot be funded. The rules exclude sole traders and anyone who is "a shareholder, director or person of significant control, with no separate identifiable line manager to undertake the role of 'employer'" (para 34.3).
For an owner, that line manager is a separate, identifiable person who manages them and takes the employer's part in the apprenticeship, and nobody may sign a contract as both apprentice and employer. Nor can anyone be funded while part way through another apprenticeship or a government-funded skills bootcamp.
Wherever they work from, the person must spend "at least 50% of their working hours in England over the duration of the apprenticeship", a rule that "also applies to remote and hybrid workers" (para 30.5), with exceptions set out at Annex A, paragraph 374.6.
What happens to their pay?
Under para 75 of the funding rules, every apprentice must be paid "a lawful wage for the time they are in work and in training", and the employer must comply with the minimum wage regulations.
GOV.UK's minimum wage rates page, which we read with the other rules, guidance and records quoted here on 8 October 2026, sets these minimums from 1 April 2026: £12.71 an hour at 21 and over, £10.85 at 18 to 20, and £8 both under 18 and at the apprentice rate.
The apprentice rate covers apprentices under 19, and those aged 19 or over in the first year of their apprenticeship. Regulation 5 of the National Minimum Wage Regulations 2015 applies it to apprentices "within the first 12 months after the commencement of that employment or under 19 years of age", and para 75.1 of the funding rules allows it only "from the apprenticeship start date ... and not before".
For an existing employee, HMRC counts those 12 months from the start of the apprenticeship. Its National Minimum Wage Manual, in a page dated March 2022, says contracts of apprenticeship "are treated separately from any other contract ... the worker may have previously had with the same or another employer", with the example of a 20-year-old nursery assistant who starts an apprenticeship three months into the job.
HMRC adds that an officer may test whether the apprenticeship is a genuine separate contract "and not simply a label". GOV.UK's guidance Calculating the minimum wage, in an eligibility section updated in May 2025, lists among common errors paying the apprentice rate "before a worker actually starts their apprenticeship, or after it ends".
All these rates are legal minimums. Nothing in the funding rules sets, cuts or freezes an existing employee's pay, and starting an apprenticeship does not by itself change their contract. A pay change is a contract change, and GOV.UK's guidance on changing an employment contract tells employers: "You must get an employee's agreement if you want to make changes to their contract."
If an employer changes a contract without agreement, the same guidance says employees may have the right to refuse to work under the new conditions, may work them "under protest", may "resign and claim constructive dismissal" or may take a case to an employment tribunal. Saying or doing nothing about new terms, it adds, "may count as agreeing to the changes".
GOV.UK's pay and conditions guidance also requires employers to "pay your apprentice for time spent training or studying" and to "offer apprentices the same conditions as other employees working at similar grades or in similar roles", naming paid holidays, sick pay, benefits, and support such as coaching or mentoring. Apprentices "have the same employment rights as your other employees".
One sector protects basic pay in its own terms: since 1 July 2024, NHS staff in England on the NHS Terms and Conditions of Service whose apprenticeship leads to a role at the same or a higher pay band receive, for its duration, basic pay of at least the step point they would have reached in their current role, according to NHS Employers' guidance of June 2024.
Whatever happens to pay, the apprentice is never asked to fund the training: para 220 bars the provider and the employer from asking them "to contribute financially to the eligible costs of training or assessment".
What will it cost?
The apprenticeship levy, a 0.5% charge on employers whose annual pay bill is over £3 million, with a £15,000 allowance under HMRC's rates and thresholds for 2026 to 2027, can pay for an existing employee. Para 31 of the funding rules lets an employer spend its account on apprentices "employed by them or a connected company or charity".
Where an employer does not pay the levy, or pays it but has insufficient funds, the split depends on the apprentice's age on the first day of training and on the employer's levy position, up to the funding band maximum (paras 213 to 215):
| Age on the first day of training | Employer that does not pay the levy | Levy payer with insufficient funds |
|---|---|---|
| 16 to 24 | Government pays all | Government pays all |
| 25 or over | Government 95%, employer 5% | Government 75%, employer 25% |
The employer pays anything above the band. For an existing employee aged 25 or over on the Level 4 Data analyst standard, with its £15,000 band, the employer's share is up to £750 without the levy and up to £3,750 for a levy payer out of funds. Our employer guide to data analyst apprentices sets out the full matrix by band.
Skills England's standards records give the bands and minimum off-the-job hours for five data and related standards:
| Standard (level) | Funding band maximum | Minimum off-the-job hours |
|---|---|---|
| Data technician, ST0795 (3) | £13,000 | 348 |
| Data analyst, ST0118 (4) | £15,000 | 370 |
| Business analyst, ST0117 (4) | £18,000 | 348 |
| Data protection and information governance practitioner, ST0967 (4) | £10,000 | 370 |
| Data engineer, ST1386 (5) | £19,000 | 418 |
The £2,000 hiring payment, for employers that do not pay the levy and apprentices aged 16 to 24, has four conditions, and one of them rules out anyone in post for more than 90 days: the apprentice "has not been employed by that employer for more than 90 days before their practical period start date" (para 133.4).
Employer National Insurance relief turns on age and apprentice status, so it does reach existing staff under 25. Category H, "Apprentices under 25", carries a 0% employer rate up to £967 a week (£50,270 a year) and 15% above, in HMRC's 2026 to 2027 rates. Our guide to the cost of a young apprentice works the sums through.
Levy funds entering an account from August 2026 expire after 12 months, against 24 for earlier funds, according to DWP's Apprenticeship funding page, and the rules note that the 10% government top-up is no longer added. Transfers to another employer, within an annual allowance currently set at 50%, "must be agreed and put in place before an apprentice ... starts" (para 239).
An employer that does not pay the levy reserves funds, and para 201 names this case: reserve "in advance of recruitment, or an offer of an apprenticeship being made to an existing employee", backdating by one calendar month only in exceptional cases. A reservation expires if unused within 3 months of its start date. What changed on 1 August 2026 is covered in our guide to the levy reforms.
What does the employer commit to?
Para 66 lists what the employer agrees to: "the appropriate support and supervision" for both the job and the apprenticeship, including the end-point assessment, the assessment the apprentice takes once the training period is over; release for off-the-job training as set out in the training plan, which the provider agrees with employer and apprentice; the chance to use what they learn at work; and a part in progress reviews.
Every apprentice needs the separate identifiable line manager described above (para 24), and DWP's guidance asks that whoever manages them day to day knows the content of the training plan and the commitments in it.
Off-the-job training happens "during the apprentice's normal working hours", meaning the hours they "would normally be paid, excluding overtime" (para 82.1). It must deliver new skills relevant to the standard, and it excludes training given "for the sole purpose of enabling the apprentice to perform the work for which they have been employed".
Training outside those hours is allowed only "by exception", with the apprentice's agreement and compensation such as time off in lieu (para 84.6.1). The minimum hours are printed on each standard, as in the table of bands above, and are not tied to a length of programme: the rules' own example spreads 278 hours "over 8 months, 12 months or 15 months".
The training plan must include "Written confirmation from the employer that the apprentice will be allowed to undertake off-the-job training within their normal working hours" (para 100.12). The apprenticeship agreement, between employer and apprentice, is a separate document that the provider does not sign, and DWP's agreement template says its contents can be attached to or incorporated into an existing employment contract.
Progress reviews come at least every 3 calendar months during the practical period, as "a three-way discussion involving the provider, employer and the apprentice", and the employer "must attend, physically or virtually, in the majority of occurrences" (para 102.2.1). Any other timetable is agreed in advance, with reviews no more than 6 months apart.
Our programmes run 15 months of training, then a 3-month end-point assessment, and an employer with one or two people joins an open cohort, with no minimum. Coaching sessions are weekly and online, so our apprenticeships can be taken from anywhere in England, and from the first weeks the apprentice works on a project from their own job.
How common is it, and how does it go?
In the DfE and DWP apprenticeship statistics published on 16 July 2026, apprentices employed for more than a year accounted for 43.8% of starts in England in 2024/25, where length of employment was known, against 40.5% for those employed up to 3 months.
On the Level 4 Data analyst standard (ST0118) the share is higher. In our analysis of the DfE underlying starts data, July 2026 release, 77% of 7,136 starts in 2024/25 were by people who had been with their employer for more than 12 months.
DfE reports growth in this group since 2021/22 and a fall for new employees, and on its counts the share in 2024/25 was about 54% at Level 4 (24,910 of 46,010 known starts) and about 75% at Level 5 (25,750 of 34,320), while on ST0118 it reached 80% in provisional data for August 2025 to April 2026 (4,042 of 5,055 known).
For AI skills in particular, training or retraining existing staff is the most common route businesses report in the ONS article Artificial intelligence in UK businesses: 2023 to 2026, released on 20 July 2026 from official statistics in development, a finding our guide to AI upskilling across a whole workforce builds on.
Surveys of apprentices count something different from starts. DfE's 2023 learner survey, run by IFF Research by telephone from 4 July to 15 September 2023 with 4,919 apprentices and published in September 2024, found that 51% already worked for their apprenticeship employer before it began, down from 56% in 2021; among respondents aged 25 and over it was 79%, and at Level 4, 61%.
The 2023 employer survey from the same evaluation found that, of 2,981 employers with current apprentices, 38% offered apprenticeships to existing staff and 28% only to existing staff, and the existing-staff-only share was 50% among employers with apprentices at Level 4 and above.
Of the 1,489 employers training existing staff, 89% did so to improve skills for the job the person already held. A lower overall wage bill was reported as a benefit by 20% of employers who only trained existing staff, against 41% of those who only recruited new apprentices.
The learner survey also shows where it goes less well. Apprentices already working for their employer were less likely than new recruits to report receiving the off-the-job training due to them (57% against 64%), measured against the rules in force in 2023, which differ from today's hours per standard. Our advice is to fix those hours into the working week before the first day.
Existing staff were also more likely than new recruits to say their employer had told them they had to do it (8% against 4%), and in the separate, smaller survey of 506 people who did not complete, non-completers were more likely to give that reason (14% against 8%). We would make sure the apprenticeship is the employee's choice as well as the employer's.
Two-thirds of those non-completers (66%) had worked for their employer beforehand, against 55% of completers. Existing staff among them more often cited a lack of support or contact from their training provider or tutor as a reason for dissatisfaction (52% against 25% of recruits), while recruits more often cited problems with their employer (51% against 9%).
Three in four of the same 1,489 employers (75%) reported that training existing staff had improved staff retention, and existing staff who completed were more likely than those recruited for the apprenticeship to still work for the employer (71% against 64%).
Frequently asked questions
Can an existing employee over 25 do an apprenticeship?
Yes. The funding rules set an upper age only for Level 7 standards, foundation apprenticeships and one Level 2 standard, and the Level 3 to 5 data standards in the table of bands are not among them. In DfE's 2024/25 statistics, about 68% of starts by people aged 25 or over were by people employed for more than a year (122,300 of 181,130 where length of employment was known).
Can someone who already has a degree start an apprenticeship?
Yes, if it gives them significant new skills. The rules fund an apprenticeship at a higher level than a qualification someone already holds; at the same or a lower level, para 68.2 funds it only "if the apprenticeship will allow the individual to acquire significant new skills and the provider can show that the content of the training is materially different from any prior qualification or a previous apprenticeship".
Can a part-time employee do an apprenticeship?
Yes. Minimum durations are based on at least 30 hours of work a week, but the rules say "Working fewer than 30 hours per week or having a zero-hours contract must not be a barrier to successfully completing an apprenticeship" (para 77.3). The standard's minimum off-the-job hours still apply, and the provider must agree with the employer that the expected duration for a part-time apprentice is realistic.
Can someone on probation or a fixed-term contract start one?
Only if their contract of employment is long enough for them to finish the apprenticeship, including the end-point assessment (para 69). Under para 30.2, someone who cannot complete in the time available, for example because "they have a fixed term contract which is shorter than the duration of the apprenticeship", must not be funded, and the apprenticeship agreement must last for the apprenticeship's actual duration (para 70).
If they leave partway through, can we ask them to repay the training cost?
No. The bar in para 220 covers an apprentice who has "left the programme early (this includes where they have left the employer)", and it extends to any co-investment, the employer's own share of the cost, and to costs above the funding band that the employer paid the provider. If they withdraw but stay in the job, the employer must stop using the apprentice rate (para 75.2).
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.