Securing success from start to finish – investigating factors associated with apprenticeship withdrawal
27 January 2026
Just over half (55 per cent) of apprentices who were scheduled to achieve their apprenticeship in the 2022/23 academic year did so. This increased to 61 per cent in 2023/24 but remains a long way short of the start of the 2010's, when over 70 percent of apprentices typically completed within the scheduled timeframe.
This report provides new quantitative evidence into the factors associated with apprenticeship withdrawal. This includes examining the effects of employer, provider, and learner characteristics on apprentices’ likelihood of withdrawal. It also considers how employment outcomes and earnings vary between learners that completed their apprenticeship, relative to those that withdraw.
Key Findings
- The switch from apprenticeship frameworks to standards is a key factor in explaining the substantial decline in the apprenticeship achievement rate over the last decade
- Learners from poorer backgrounds, those with lower prior attainment and those facing additional barriers are disproportionately more likely to withdraw
- Apprentices employed by smaller organisations or employers new to apprenticeships are more likely to withdraw than those working for larger, more experienced employers
- A 10 per cent increase in first year apprentice pay is associated with only a small reduction in withdrawal rate, suggesting pay rises alone are unlikely to solve the completion challenge