Only one in 20 manufacturers surveyed are happy with apprenticeship levy

The vast majority replying say the system needs to fund wider skills training and must be employer led.

Statistics reveal that few than one in five firms (19%) managed to spend all of their levy last year and more than half overall think training money should not be limited to apprenticeships but extended to other training.

Lack of training provision and of uniform approaches to apprenticeships have been cited as significant problems 

Make UK director of labour market and skills policy Tim Thomas said: “The apprenticeship levy was rushed in development, hurried in implementation and has been caught ever since in systemic chop and change.

“It’s little wonder then that manufacturers overwhelmingly want to see real change, not tinkering at the edges of a skills system that is just too slow, too complex and increasingly too late to deliver the skills needed by tomorrow’s technologies.”

It’s little wonder then that manufacturers overwhelmingly want to see real change, not tinkering at the edges of a skills system that is just too slow, too complex and increasingly too late

Tim Thomas, director of labour market and skills policy, Make UK  

He said it was time for Government to open the levy pot up to other forms of technical, work-based training and to refocus on worker too. But he added that manufacturers remained supportive with nearly two thirds of respondents (65%) having recruited an engineering apprentice in the last 12 months.

Make UK, which trains more than 1,000 apprentices annually at its Technology Training Centre in Birmingham, surveyed 205 manufacturers, including levy and non-levy paying companies during April.