Apprenticeship starts for the whole of the 2021/22 grew 9 per cent on the previous academic year – and it was young people who saw the biggest increase, new figures show. Provisional data published this morning by the Department for Education has revealed there were a total of 347,900 starts last year compared to 319,400 in 2020/21. Starts for 2021/22 were, however, still 11 per cent down on the 389,200 recorded in 2018/19 – the year before the Covid-19 pandemic. Unusually, it was those aged 16 to 18 who saw the biggest proportional rise in apprenticeship starts – growing by 20 per cent from 64,400 in 2020/21 to 77,200 in 2021/22.
