The Apprenticeship Levy incentive is designed to increase the amount of investment into the Apprenticeship Scheme throughout the UK, with larger organisations making Levy payments which support their own staff and smaller organisations.

What Is The Apprenticeship Levy?

The Apprenticeship Levy is a tax placed on UK companies with an annual payroll of £3 million or more. The tax is paid at a rate of 0.5% of the total salary bill, meaning that a company with the minimum salary bill of £3 million would pay £15,000.

Any company paying the Apprenticeship Levy can access these funds and use them to pay for an apprentice’s training. Given that the tax will be paid regardless, in essence, this means that an apprentice can be trained for free.

They also have the option to donate parts of their levy, up to 25% to support smaller local businesses and help close the skills gap within the sector.

What about Non Levy Payers?

Companies with a salary bill lower than £3 million cannot use the Apprenticeship Levy, but they can still access government funding. In this case, the government pays 95% of the apprentice’s training, while the employer pays 5%.

With this in mind, it would cost a company just £900 to train an apprentice through Code Nation over 18 months as the course costs a total of £18,000.

There are additional incentives available for organisations with less than 50 staff members where the government will fund 100% of the training costs for new apprentices. Find out more here

They can also work with Levy paying businesses to gain support recruiting and training their apprentices, making use of the Levy instead. We work closely with a range of businesses that provide this and can support smaller businesses throughout the entire process.

How Do I Hire An Apprentice?

We here at Code Nation have developed a unique way of identifying and training great new tech talent through the Apprenticeship Levy.

Our Pledger scheme allows businesses to work with us to hire new members of staff and apprentices. We slot into their current procurement programmes easily and efficiently, either working independently or hand-in-hand with recruitment teams. The choice is up to each individual business.

Once a company is on-board, they can view CVs and attend a recruitment/assessment day where they can find the students best suited to them.

Students then take our 12-week Master: Coding course, during which they learn all the key tech skills, professional skills and soft skills to make them a brilliant Junior Developer and a fantastic asset to any organisation.

Best of all, by using the Apprenticeship Levy, it’s all essentially free training for businesses and a fantastic way to support future growth and development.

In summary

The Apprenticeship Levy is an invaluable way for businesses to get great new talent, support the economy and close the digital skills gap.

If you’re interested in learning more about what apprentices could offer your business, get in touch with us today for a 1-1 Apprenticeship Assessment to see how you can utilise the Levy.