Seven apprenticeships, two ladders and a specialism. This page shows the standards TLC actually delivers, how each one steps up to the next, and where the climb goes once the standards run out.
Every step on this page is an apprenticeship TLC delivers today, with a full curriculum you can open and read. Where a route you may have heard of is no longer funded, we say so, and we show you the step that replaces it.
Progression is never automatic. It depends on your performance, your experience and the opportunities where you work. What we promise is that at every level, we talk about the next one with you.
Three apprenticeships, each one a real job with real training behind it. Walk the line and see how far the craft goes.
Where the craft starts. You learn to prep, cook and present to specification, hold food safety standards, and earn your place in a professional kitchen.
You take charge of a section. Leading the line, supervising production, developing people and holding the standard through a full service.
Senior kitchen craft. Menu design, cost and margin, developing new dishes and leading the brigade. This is where leadership becomes part of the job.
Head chef, kitchen manager, executive roles. From Level 4 the climb runs on experience and opportunity, and everything you learned stays with you.
Three apprenticeships that carry you from your first care role to running a service. Each level builds on the one before it.
The foundations of person-centred care, done well. Dignity, communication, safeguarding and safe practice, learned in a real role.
More responsibility and more judgement. You lead by example, mentor colleagues and take the lead on quality in day-to-day care.
Running services and leading teams with confidence. From Level 3 the funded route steps straight to Level 5, and we plan that jump with you.
Registered manager, senior and multi-service leadership. Level 5 is the recognised platform, and where you take it is a conversation we keep having with you.
Safeguarding sits differently. It is a specialism you can build alongside either ladder, or on its own, and it matters in every kitchen, care service and classroom we work with.
The Level 3 programme, developed in partnership with the NSPCC, prepares you for real safeguarding responsibility, and it is the natural step toward designated safeguarding lead roles.
Level 3 · SafeguardingTLC does not run a separate team-leading apprenticeship, and we think that is the honest way round. Leadership at TLC grows out of the senior standards themselves. Senior Culinary Chef at Level 4 leads a brigade. Leader in Adult Care at Level 5 runs a service. By the time you finish either one, you are already doing the job a leadership course describes.
One more piece of honesty: the Level 4 lead practitioner route in adult care is no longer funded nationally, so our care ladder steps from Level 3 straight to Level 5. We plan that jump with you rather than pretending a rung exists.
Each apprenticeship on this page has a full curriculum you can walk through month by month, including what you learn, how you are assessed and where it leads.
Ten private minutes with the readiness check will tell you more than an hour of browsing. And if you would rather talk it through, we are easy to reach.
Leave your details and a short message, and a member of the TLC team will get back to you. You can also email info@tlc-uk.org.
Someone from the TLC team will be in touch soon.