The apprenticeship levy is a tax on large employers in the UK with a wage bill of over £3 million per year. The funds collected from the levy are used to fund apprenticeship training and assessment across the country.

Through their apprentice service account, a levy paying business can transfer some of their unused levy funds to other employers who are looking to train apprentices but don’t have the finances to cover the full cost of training.

Levy paying employers can transfer up to 50% of their annual levy funds to other organisations as long as the employer receiving the transfer is registered with the apprenticeship service and is eligible to receive transfers. 

The employer making the transfer decides how much of their unspent funds they want to transfer, and the employer receiving the transfer can use the funds to pay for the training and assessment costs of their own apprentices.

Transfers can only be made to support apprenticeship training and assessment costs and cannot be used to pay for other costs such as wages, travel, or subsistence.

You can now search the government portal for apprenticeship funding opportunities via levy transfer. As a business of any size, you can use this service to apply for funding from large businesses that want to fund 100% of your apprenticeship training and assessment costs.

Local Levy Transfer Campaigns

Due to the growing popularity of apprenticeships across the UK, many local campaigns have been set up to facilitate levy transfers to businesses in their local communities. A few notable campaigns include:

• Manchester – The #SEEDIFFERENT campaign offers a levy matchmaking service to maximise the use of funds, provides its own local strategy to gauge where skills gaps are.
• London – Workwhile offers free support to increase investment in apprenticeships, aid fair levy transfers, and access to a knowledge-sharing network between local businesses. 
• West Sussex – The council offers a service for businesses to both transfer and receive apprenticeship levy funds to ensure the fair distribution of levy funds and stimulate the economy locally.
• Birmingham – The WMCA set up the Apprenticeship Levy Transfer Fund to cover the costs of training apprentices at small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the West Midlands.

At HIT Training, we’re here to identify the best local scheme available to meet the needs of your workforce. Get in touch with us today and we can support you through the application process. Alternatively, you can download our guide to receiving levy transfers.