FEBRUARY 2023
Working paper 1/2023
Barriers and facilitators of apprenticeships amongst smallto-medium enterprises in the UK MADDY WINNARD1
The number of people starting an apprenticeship has declined significantly since 2015/16 and young people from disadvantaged backgrounds are less likely to gain an apprenticeship place, and complete it when they do, than their more privileged peers.2 A third of young people rated the availability of local apprenticeships negatively in 2022.3 Small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) are key to making apprenticeships more accessible across the country as they are often located in ‘social mobility coldspots’.4 Young people from more deprived postcodes are more likely than peers to do their apprenticeship at a small or medium employer.5 Existing research has identified many different barriers for SMEs but has not looked at how these might differ according to SMEs’ geographical characteristics. This is important to know to design effective solutions that will result in more equitable apprenticeship opportunities across the UK. On this basis, this paper looks at the barriers that SMEs face to offering apprenticeships, focusing on how this varies by geography. We conducted an evidence review and contribute a new analysis of data from the Longitudinal Small Business Survey (LSBS).6 We provide these new insights using the COM-B model, a framework used to identify the causes of, and barriers to, behaviour. It was originally developed in reference to healthcare but since has been applied in a variety of settings.7 The model takes its name from the three important factors in behaviour (‘B’): capability (psychological or physical abilities); opportunity (environmental or contextual factors); motivation (emotional responses, goals, reflective decisions). Our findings indicate that more detailed information about how apprenticeships work for the benefit of SMEs is needed and that SMEs would benefit from independent information brokers acting as a ‘prompt’ to action. We found that SMEs in rural and more deprived locations require additional support, whereas SMEs based in less deprived areas would benefit from information to tackle motivation-related barriers.
1.
The author is a Senior Research officer in the Employability and Careers directorate at Education Development Trust. Our working papers are commissioned and peer-reviewed by the EDT Research team.
2.
Department for Education (2022a); Social Mobility Commission (2021). DfE data indicates that 2021/22 saw an increase in starts compared to the previous academic year. However, this is only a slight reversal of a five-year trend with the number still remaining 160,170 starts behind the number in 2015/16.
3.
Youth Employment UK (2022)
4.
Social Mobility Commission (2021)
5.
Department for Education (2022b)
6.
For more information about the LSBS, see Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (2019a) and (2019b)
7.
See Michie, Van Stralen and West (2011)
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