The Growth and Skills Levy: What Training Providers Need to Know in 2026

What Is the Growth and Skills Levy?

The Growth and Skills Levy is the UK government's replacement for the Apprenticeship Levy — announced as part of the Skills England agenda to create a more flexible employer-funded training mechanism for England.

The fundamental shift: where the Apprenticeship Levy required employer funds to be spent exclusively on apprenticeships, the Growth and Skills Levy expands the eligible training types. Employers will be able to direct levy funds to a broader range of qualifications and short courses, not just apprenticeship standards and frameworks.

The levy rate itself remains unchanged — 0.5% of annual payroll above £3 million, collected via PAYE. What changes is what that money can be spent on and who governs the approved training list.

Key structural points:

• Skills England — the new arm's-length body established in 2024, replacing functions previously held by IfATE — oversees which training types are eligible for levy funding
• Employers retain digital accounts to direct levy funds, but the eligible menu of training types is wider
• Levy transfer arrangements continue: larger employers can transfer up to 50% of unused levy funds to smaller employers in their supply chain
• Apprenticeships continue under existing standards and frameworks — the levy change does not remove or reduce apprenticeship funding

In practice, the Growth and Skills Levy represents a deliberate policy move to make employer-funded training less prescriptive and more responsive to what businesses actually need — including shorter, faster, more targeted workforce development.

What Changes for Training Providers?

The most significant change for providers is the expansion of eligible training types. Previously, providers managing levy-funded training were almost exclusively delivering apprenticeships. The administrative and compliance infrastructure across the sector — TMS platforms, ILR reporting, employer engagement processes — was built around that single training type.

Under the Growth and Skills Levy, providers will also be funded to deliver:

• Shorter skills-focused programmes approved by Skills England
• Skills Bootcamps — currently DfE-funded directly, expected to fall under the employer levy framework
• Modular qualifications at Level 2 and Level 3
• Foundation apprenticeships — a new, shorter entry-level pathway

This creates both an opportunity and an operational challenge. Providers who can absorb new training types into their existing delivery model will grow their levy-funded portfolio. Providers running disconnected systems — one platform for apprenticeships, a spreadsheet for bootcamps, a separate CRM for employer engagement — will find the administration increasingly unmanageable as the funding streams multiply.

Which Training Types Are Eligible Under the Growth and Skills Levy?

Eligibility is confirmed by DfE and Skills England approval — the list will evolve as the framework matures. Based on current DfE guidance and the Skills England mandate, the following training types are expected to fall within scope:

• Apprenticeships: all existing standards and frameworks continue, with no reduction in funding rates or eligibility
• Skills Bootcamps: already an established DfE-funded provision; expected to become accessible via employer digital levy accounts
• Shorter modular qualifications: Level 2 and Level 3 qualifications approved by Skills England, particularly in priority sectors
• Foundation apprenticeships: a new, shorter entry-level pathway for younger learners and career changers
• Funded upskilling and reskilling programmes: employer-directed workforce development in areas aligned to the national skills plan, including clean energy, construction, digital, and health and care

Providers should monitor the Approved Provider Register and DfE guidance regularly. The eligibility list will be updated as Skills England confirms which qualifications attract levy funding — and being on the approved register early matters for employer pipeline.

The Skills England Agenda

Skills England was established in 2024 with a mandate to coordinate the skills system across England — acting as the strategic interface between government, employers, and education and training providers.

Its core remit is to create a national skills infrastructure that responds to real labour market needs, with an explicit focus on sectors where skills shortages are most acute:

• Clean energy and net zero transition
• Construction and built environment
• Digital and technology
• Health and social care

Skills England is developing a national skills plan that will determine which qualifications attract levy funding. For training providers, this creates two distinct implications:

Opportunity: more programmes become levy-eligible, expanding the market for funded delivery. Providers who already operate in priority sectors are well-positioned for increased employer demand.

Compliance requirement: programmes must appear on Skills England-approved lists to attract levy funding. Providers delivering qualifications that are not on the approved list will not be able to offer them as levy-funded provision, regardless of their existing quality record.

Staying close to Skills England's published guidance — and having a platform that can quickly onboard newly approved programmes — is a genuine competitive advantage in the post-2026 funding landscape.

Foundation Apprenticeships: What Providers Need to Know

Foundation apprenticeships are one of the new training types introduced alongside the Growth and Skills Levy reform. They are a distinct pathway — not simply a shorter version of existing standards.

Key characteristics:

• Target audience: younger learners (16–19 primarily) and career changers entering a sector for the first time
• Duration: estimated 6–12 months — significantly shorter than full apprenticeship standards
• Qualification structure: separate from full apprenticeship standards — foundation apprenticeships have their own framework and are not a gateway to gateway-based EPA in the same way
• Purpose: provide an introductory occupational pathway that builds sector-specific competence before a learner progresses to a full standard

Providers already delivering Level 2 and Level 3 standards are well-positioned to offer foundation apprenticeships in adjacent occupations — the occupational knowledge and employer relationships are already in place. The delivery model, however, needs to support a different compliance structure and timeline to full standards.

Providers should avoid treating foundation apprenticeships as a “lite” version of their existing programmes. They have their own regulatory requirements, and applying apprenticeship-standard compliance processes (including full KSB mapping frameworks) to a foundation pathway may create unnecessary overhead and incorrect evidence structures.

How to Prepare Your Delivery Model

Audit Your Current Training Types

Start with a clear picture of what you currently deliver and how each programme is funded. Map your portfolio against three questions:

• Which programmes are currently levy-funded, and which are not?
• Which of your non-levy programmes could become levy-eligible under the Growth and Skills Levy?
• Does your current platform and compliance infrastructure support the new training types — or will you need to manage them separately?

The audit should include an honest assessment of your system capability. A platform that was purpose-built for apprenticeships will likely not handle Skills Bootcamp outcome reporting, shorter qualification evidence structures, or employer levy account integration without significant modification.

Update Your Programme Infrastructure

Each training type under the Growth and Skills Levy carries its own compliance structure. They are not interchangeable:

• Skills Bootcamps: 12–16 week delivery with DfE outcome reporting via the Provider Data Dashboard; employer involvement and interview guarantees are core requirements
• Shorter qualifications: different evidence and assessment requirements to apprenticeships — typically qualification-based rather than KSB-based
• Foundation apprenticeships: their own framework with distinct delivery and evidence requirements
• Full apprenticeships: continue under existing rules, including KSB mapping, OTJ hours tracking, and EPA gateway requirements

Your platform needs to handle training-type-specific compliance rules — not apply apprenticeship logic to every funded programme. Attempting to force Skills Bootcamp delivery into an apprenticeship workflow creates reporting errors, compliance gaps, and poor learner experience.

Prepare for New ESFA Reporting Requirements

Each new funding stream introduced under the Growth and Skills Levy will bring its own ILR fields, data return requirements, and funding rules. Providers who rely on manual reporting processes or a TMS that has not kept pace with ESFA data specification changes face real compliance risk as these requirements evolve.

The practical implication: if your reporting infrastructure requires manual intervention every time ESFA updates its data specification, you will be running to stand still as new funding streams are added. Platforms that are continuously updated to reflect ESFA data requirements — without manual reconfiguration by the provider — reduce your compliance exposure significantly.

Employer Engagement at Scale

The levy expansion means employers will have more choices about where to direct their funds. Apprenticeships will no longer be the only credible levy-funded option — Skills Bootcamps, shorter qualifications, and foundation apprenticeships all compete for the same employer budget.

Providers who can demonstrate clear ROI across their training portfolio will have a competitive advantage in retaining levy-paying employers. This means employer-facing dashboards that show:

• Learner progress and completion rates across all funded training types
• Skills outcomes linked to business objectives
• Levy account utilisation — how much has been spent, on what, and with what result

Employers who can see the value of their levy spend across multiple training types are substantially more likely to direct further funding to the same provider — and to expand their funded cohort size.

Skills Bootcamps Under the Growth and Skills Levy

Skills Bootcamps are already an established DfE-funded provision — and the Growth and Skills Levy is expected to bring them significantly closer to the employer-led funding mechanism that currently governs apprenticeships.

Current Skills Bootcamp requirements that providers must already meet:

• 12–16 week programme duration
• Meaningful employer involvement in programme design and delivery
• Interview guarantee for employed learners progressing to a new role
• DfE outcome reporting via the Provider Data Dashboard

Under the Growth and Skills Levy framework, Skills Bootcamp delivery is expected to become accessible via employer digital levy accounts — meaning levy-paying employers could direct funds to Skills Bootcamp provision more directly, without waiting for a separate DfE procurement round.

For providers currently delivering Skills Bootcamps through direct DfE funding contracts, this transition creates two distinct pressures:

Opportunity: significantly more demand from levy-funded employers who previously could not easily direct levy money to bootcamp provision. The addressable market for Skills Bootcamp delivery grows substantially.

Transition risk: new reporting and compliance requirements will accompany the integration with employer levy accounts. Providers need to ensure their systems can handle both the existing DfE reporting obligations and the new ESFA-side requirements without creating a manual double-entry problem.

What a Growth and Skills Levy-Ready Platform Looks Like

Not every training management system or LMS is equipped for the multi-training-type future the Growth and Skills Levy creates. The platforms that will serve providers well are those built with the following capabilities:

• Native support for multiple training types: apprenticeships, Skills Bootcamps, shorter qualifications, and foundation apprenticeships managed within the same system — not via workarounds or parallel spreadsheet processes
• Training-type-specific compliance: KSB mapping for apprenticeships; employer outcome tracking and interview guarantee recording for bootcamps; qualification-based evidence for shorter programmes
• ESFA reporting that evolves with DfE guidance: ILR fields and data returns updated as the funding rules change, without requiring manual reconfiguration by the provider
• Employer portal with levy visibility: showing levy allocation, funded learner progress across all training types, and skills outcomes in language employers understand
• DfE Provider Data Dashboard alignment: Skills Bootcamp outcome reporting built in, not bolted on

The test is simple: can you enrol a learner onto a Skills Bootcamp, an apprenticeship, and a shorter qualification in the same system — with the correct compliance workflow, evidence structure, and reporting output for each — without manual intervention? If not, you have platform gaps to close before the levy transition accelerates.

Quick Reference: Growth and Skills Levy Checklist

• Audit current levy-funded training types and identify expansion opportunities
• Assess whether your platform supports Skills Bootcamps and shorter qualifications (not just apprenticeships)
• Confirm your platform's ESFA reporting capability for new funding streams
• Review employer engagement strategy — can you demonstrate ROI across multiple training types?
• Register for Skills England updates and monitor the Approved Provider Register
• Check DfE guidance on foundation apprenticeships and eligibility criteria
• Ensure data infrastructure supports new ILR fields before they go live