Your employer has picked you out and offered to fund your training. Paid study hours, a recognised qualification, proper support the whole way through. Most people wait years for an offer like this, so give it the attention it deserves. This page covers what you are being offered, what it will ask of you, and how to answer in your own time.
The same certificate apprentices earn anywhere in the country. It stays with you for life, wherever your career goes next.
At least six hours a week for learning, inside your normal working week, on your normal pay. Your employer agrees to that in writing before you start.
A mentor at work, plus your own TLC assessor who meets you regularly from your first week to your final assessment.
Your employer and the government levy cover the training costs between them. You will never be asked to pay anything, at any point.
Employers put training money behind the people they want to keep and promote. Somebody senior looked at your work and decided you were worth the investment. Remember that when the doubts creep in.
The training plan needs three signatures before anything begins. Your employer signs, we sign, and you sign. Until you do, nothing happens. Nobody can put your name on it for you.
This page and every tool on it will still be here next week, and next month. If you need to think, think. If you want a second opinion, get one. Good employers wait for good answers.
All three get respect around here. What matters is that the answer is really yours.
Tell your employer, or tell us. We check your maths, your English and what you already know, then the three of us sit down and shape the programme around your actual job. Right up until you sign, you can still change your mind.
Maybe this year is packed. You might be caring for someone, or partway through something else that deserves finishing. Say so, and tell your employer when would work better. In our experience they listen, because the reasons behind an honest delay are usually good ones.
Some people read all of this and know the answer is no. The direction feels wrong, or studying alongside work holds no appeal. Fair enough. Say it plainly and keep doing your job. If you are worried how a no will land, read the first question below.
These are the questions people type into a search bar at midnight instead of asking anyone. Here are our answers, in writing, where everyone can see them.
No, and you have more protection here than you might think. The rules that fund apprenticeships only let us enrol people who genuinely want to do the training. When someone tells us they felt pushed into saying yes, we stop the enrolment. Learners who never wanted to be there tend to struggle and leave partway through, which helps nobody.
Declining a training offer changes none of your employment rights. If you say no and then feel it being held against you, email us in confidence, or ring the National Careers Service. Both contacts are at the bottom of this page.
Tell us, because it changes the whole plan. Before you start, we assess what you already know and can do. The funding rules say an apprenticeship has to teach you a substantial amount of new skill, so if you walk in with years of experience the programme gets shorter, or moves up a level, or we tell you honestly that a different route would serve you better.
Be blunt about how good you are. Modesty in that first assessment buys you months of being taught things you already know.
You do. Your employer offers the opportunity, pays your wages and gives you the time to learn. We teach and assess. But the paperwork needs your signature before any of it starts, and nobody else can provide that. If anyone pushes you to sign before your questions are answered, that is a red flag, and we would want to hear about it.
There is a settling-in period, and your assessor meets you regularly precisely so that small problems get caught while they are still small. Pace can change. Support can change. The awkward conversation you are dreading with your employer is one we can help you have.
And if the programme is still wrong after all that, you can withdraw. People do. Life happens. Helping someone leave well matters more to us than keeping a number on a register. Just tell us early, while there are still good options.
No. Nothing on this site saves your details, nobody gets an email saying you visited, and the readiness check works as many times as you want to take it. Sleep on it. Talk to people you trust. A yes given in your own time is worth ten given on the spot.
People who choose this route finish it. People who get talked into it drift out by spring. That is the whole reason this page exists.
Why we ask you to decide for yourself
Marco Pierre White helped shape our culinary training, and he is far from the only serious name on the list.
Three tools, built for exactly this moment. Use them tonight on the sofa if you like. Nobody will know.
Short questions about where you have been, what you want and how you like to learn. At the end you get a personal report telling you, in plain terms, whether this route fits the life you are aiming for.
Maths, spelling, exams, the fear of looking silly. This page names the worries out loud and shows you exactly what support looks like for each one.
Month-by-month maps of every apprenticeship we run, so you can see precisely what you would be learning and where each level takes you.
Keep this list on your phone. Anyone who asks these six sounds like someone worth investing in, because they are.
Why me? What did you see in my work that made you think of this?
Which hours each week will be protected for my off-the-job learning, and what happens to them in a busy week?
Who will mentor me day to day, and do they know it yet?
What will my pay be during the apprenticeship, and what does it become when I finish?
What role does this lead to here? What happens to me when I complete it?
If I say not yet, when can we talk about it again?
Notice how they respond, too. An employer who welcomes questions now will be a good employer to learn under later.
Before you give anyone an answer, talk to someone who gains nothing either way.
Ask us anything before you commit, including whether an apprenticeship suits you at all. You will get an honest answer from a real person, and we do not report the conversation back to your employer.
We aim to reply within two working days.
The National Careers Service is free, government funded, and completely independent of TLC and of your employer. Qualified advisers, no agenda, no sales pitch.
0800 100 900 · nationalcareers.service.gov.uk
Phone, webchat or face to face.
Start with the readiness check. It takes about ten minutes, and nobody sees your answers but you.
