ES1.1
Being on an Apprenticeship
Education
Education and Skills
Being on an Apprenticeship
According to the UK government, an apprenticeship is a paid job where the employee learns and gains valuable experiences.
Alongside on-the-job training, apprentices spend at least 20% of their working hours completing classroom-based learning with a college, university or training provider which leads to a nationally recognised qualification.
Key Value
A monetised social value of £32,700
This is the economic value of an apprenticeship measured in productive output of approximately £2,800 to the company, an estimated economic gain to the individual of £20,500, plus the social value of the wellbeing benefit to that apprentice at approximately £9,400.
The productive output figure for an apprentice is approximately £33,759 in 2021 prices , which was estimated by St. Martins Group in 2021 in their report “The Real Costs and Benefits of an Apprenticeship,” in partnership with City & Guilds and produced by the Centre of Economics and Business Research (Cebr). There are also apprentice subsidies of approximately £1,040. The report then deducts the apprentice wages (an approximate £17,278), training costs (£6,965) and additional expenses (£8,060). The remaining employer gains are approximately £2,496, or rounded to £2,500.
There is also a wellbeing benefit of £8,000 to the apprentice from being in paid employment, measured in WELLBYs as a change in wellbeing. 1 WELLBY is an increase in life satisfaction by 1 point on a scale of 0 to 10 and is worth £13,000 in monetised social value.
The estimated wage for an apprentice in 2023 figures is approximately £20,500 according to Total Jobs which represents economic gain to the individual.
Adding all of these together the total headline value for an apprenticeship for 1 year is £20,500 + £2,500 + £8,000 = £31,000.
Adjusted for inflation to 2023 prices this works out as: £20,500 + £2,816 (approx £2,800) + £9,389 (approx £9,400) = £32,705 in 2023 prices. Our approach to inflation adjustments is explained on our Methodology page HERE
An overall rounded value of £32,700.
How to measure the value of being on an apprenticeship
If you are just starting out, or planning a new apprenticeship programme, start at the Bronze level, and work on developing your measurement and valuation approach using the guidance to progress through to Silver, Gold, and Gold+ measurement.
Bronze
Effort
Accuracy
Monetised value:
Multiply the number of apprentices lasting at least a year by £32,700.
Under the Central Government Social Value Model, the UK government is interested in measuring the number of apprenticeship opportunities (Level 2, 3, and 4+) created or retained, by UK region.
To account for this you can use the currently estimated productive proxy value of £32,700 as a single proxy for the economic and social benefit of one apprenticeship for 1 year.
If the apprenticeship is shorter than a year the value should be divided by the length of time of the actual apprenticeship, e.g. if the apprenticeship is running for 6 months divide the proxy value by 2 = £16,700
Silver
Effort
Accuracy
Monetised value:
Multiply the number of apprentices lasting at least a year by £32,700.
In addition to the total number of apprenticeships created, the UK government is also interested in measuring the following breakdown :
- Number of disabled people on apprenticeship schemes (Level 2, 3, and 4+), by UK region.
- Total percentage of disabled people on apprenticeship schemes (Level 2, 3, and 4+), as a proportion of all people on apprenticeship schemes (Level 2, 3, and 4+) within the workforce, by UK region.
- Number of people from groups under-represented in the workforce on apprenticeship schemes (Level 2, 3, and 4+), by UK region.
- Total percentage of people from groups under- represented in the workforce on apprenticeship schemes (Level 2, 3, and 4+) under the contract, as a proportion of all people on apprenticeship schemes (Level 2, 3, and 4+) within the contract workforce, by UK region.
For the Silver level, you should include some breakdown of apprenticeships by level and by demographics of the apprentice – e.g. are they from an under-represented or otherwise disadvantaged group? Looking at sources such as the Equality and Human Rights Commission list of Protected Characteristics, as well as demographic data for the area you are working in or your apprentices are coming from will help in defining these parameters.
Also, as with the Bronze level, you can also include the wellbeing value for each apprentice.
Gold
Effort
Accuracy
Monetised value:
At Gold level you are looking to build on your silver estimations by engaging with the person or people affected.
At Gold level you are looking to build on your silver estimations by engaging with the person or people affected.
Therefore, at the Gold level, you should survey users about their actual levels of wellbeing rather than using the proxy value.
There are many options for surveying people on their wellbeing.
A good starting point for questions to ask directly through primary research with your stakeholders is the Maximise Your Impact Guide. This guide covers 10 overall impact questions. For Gold level practice you would be looking to understand the question ‘what changes do people experience?’ and ‘how much of each change happened’. Questions you might want to include in your survey to uncover the outcomes they experience could include:
- What changed for you (or happened to you) as a result of our activity or programme?
- Were there any other changes?
- Did these changes lead on to anything else?
- Were the changes all positive?
- Were any of them unexpected?
- What did you want to happen?
- How did your situation/ circumstances affect your experience?
A starting point for questions related to wellbeing is to look at the What Works Centre for Wellbeing website: https://whatworkswellbeing.org/about-wellbeing/how-to-measure-wellbeing/ .
As you start to measure wellbeing directly from the people affected, one set of questions it is important to consider is the ONS4 – the national measures for subjective wellbeing in the UK which asks the following 4 questions on a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 is ‘not at all’ and 10 is ‘completely’:
- Overall, how satisfied are you with your life nowadays?
- Overall, to what extent do you feel that the things that you do in your life are worthwhile?
- Overall, how happy did you feel yesterday?
- On a scale where 0 is ‘not at all anxious’ and 10 is ‘completely anxious’, how anxious did you feel yesterday overall?
You could also consider other data gathering activities, including direct observation, or focus groups.
Support in developing your Gold survey approach is available through the Measure Up partners, so please do reach out to Impact, State of Life or PRD.
Gold+
Effort
Accuracy
Monetised value:
At the Gold+ level, you are building on your Gold value calculation by assessing the value against the counterfactual, or ‘what would have happened anyway’.
To do this you should identify a control group suitable to assess in line with your intervention, in order to more accurately attribute any changes to your intervention.
You could also consider any other discount or causality elements linked to your job creation activity.
Support in developing your Gold+ counterfactual, causality and discount approach is available through the Measure Up partners, so please do reach out to Impact, State of Life or PRD.
| Value Type: | Master outcome |
What's this?
This is the type of value. Some values are outcomes, which means many different interventions might lead to them, others are specific interventions that have a set value. |
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| UN SDG Categories: |
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What's this?
The UN Sustainable Development Goals are global goals adopted in 2015 for all signed up nations to achieve for us to have a sustainable global future by 2030. There are 17 Goals that address the global challenges we face, including those related to poverty, inequality, climate change, environmental degradation, peace and justice. The Goals are all interconnected, and in order to leave no one behind, it is important that we achieve them all by 2030. |
| PN06/20 Categories: |
|
What's this?
PPN 06/20 Taking account of social value in the award of central government contracts introduced the Central Government Social Value Model in 2020 which all Central Government contracting authorities must use in their in scope procurements. It consists of 5 themes, 8 policy outcomes, and 24 Model Award Criteria which outline key priority areas to achieve more social value. |
Evidence
Measure Up focuses on empowering you to numerically measure the impact you’re having. We recommend that numeric reports are backed up with stories and other types of evidence to help illustrate, in human terms, the impact that’s being made on individuals.
We recommend seeing consent from one or more participants in your intervention to collect and tell their story. This should include a little background on the participant, a summing up of life before the intervention, the human impact of the intervention, and the longer term (if known) impact on the person’s life outside of, and after, the intervention.
Providing photographs, audio recordings, video interviews or even artefacts from the intervention (for example, writing, paintings, music, etc from creative interventions) can add more colour, and convey the emotional impact of interventions more directly.
In some cases it’s appropriate to anonymise or abbreviate the personal information of case study participants. No story should be published or shared without the recorded consent of the individual(s) it concerns. Individuals continue to own the rights to their stories and if they request you stop sharing the story or making it available online you should do so promptly and without need for justification.
Feedback
Measure Up is an open, collaborative and transparent. If you have any suggestions or feedback on our pragmatic, recommended approach to measuring Life Satisfaction please get in touch so we can share and discuss this at our next Advisory Group meeting.
More help
We want to empower anyone to perform and improve their impact measurement – without needing a degree in economics.
If you need any more help, or just someone to do the legwork for you we can help signpost you to software, training and consultancy to help you get to grips with the impact you’re having.
