The Department for Education has updated the apprenticeships data covering the first 3 quarters of the 2018 to 2019 academic year (August 2018 to April 2019). This includes information on the number of apprenticeship starts, achievements and participation.
The apprenticeships data shows that there were 311,200 apprenticeship starts reported so far for the first three quarters of the 2018/19 academic year, an increase of 7.1% from 290,500 reported at this time in 2017/18. Starts have decreased by 29.3% and 19.1% compared to the equivalent period this time in 2016/17 and 2015/16, before the introduction of the apprenticeship levy.
Despite the overall 7% increase, the statistics show that starts at level 2 have fallen by 51% and starts by 16 to 18 year-olds have dropped by 23% since the year before the apprenticeship reforms were introduced in May 2017. Read more on this analysis here.