Use your Apprenticeship Levy to boost digital skills!

Use your Apprenticeship Levy to boost digital skills

Is training or recruiting for the right digital skills an uphill struggle? Using your Apprenticeship Levy could be the answer.

The digital skills gap remains a hot topic, with the government describing digital skills as “no longer optional”

Apprenticeships can provide you with a cost–effective way to introduce new, business-critical skills into your organisation. You can use them to train new recruits, and provide existing members of staff with a way to navigate the changing demands of their roles and industries.

Unspent levies = Missed opportunities

If you’re a company with a wage bill of over £3 million then you’re paying 0.5% of this to the government in the form of a levy you can use to fund your apprenticeship training. If left unspent after 24 months, you’ll lose the cash.

This is a missed opportunity, since, used wisely, you can use the levy to create essential talent programmes and close productivity gaps - in particular digital skills gaps. If you’re already paying the apprenticeship levy, you’ve covered the cost of any eligible courses: You simply need to put in a claim via your Online Apprenticeship Levy account.

Why are companies not using their levy?

It’s estimated that companies have returned £3.3. billion in Apprenticeship Levies to the Treasury in the last few years.

Many companies are simply absorbing the levy as a business cost, while others criticise the system as being too complicated and time-consuming to oversee.

Partnering with the right training provider can help you overcome these obstacles. Firebrand can help you set up tailored apprenticeship programmes, take on the burden of enrolment, and support your learners, line managers throughout the process.

Given that apprenticeships learn on the job, your organisation can quickly start to reap the rewards of their enhanced digital skills.

Ready to explore apprenticeship training?

Apprenticeships have proved a valuable solution to many companies’ recruitment challenges and helped fill roles in software engineering, DevOps, cybersecurity, digital marketing, and end-user computing. And it’s worth remembering that apprenticeships are suitable, not just for youngsters, but for people of all ages, locations and skills.