Many employers are concerned about April's rise in employer national insurance contributions from 13.8% on salaries over £9,100, to 15% on salaries above £5,000. But did you know, if your apprentice is under 25, on an approved apprenticeship, and earning below the specified threshold, you will not have to pay employer National Insurance contributions on their earnings. This can lead to significant cost savings for your business.

The clocks go forward at the end of March and April 5th is looming. So, businesses, you need to act now! Have you used your Apprenticeship Levy allowance?

Our CEO of Swarm Training, Jennifer Perry, has been gathering donations for a cause very close to her heart to support under privileged children in her local primary school to have the kind of Christmas that so many of us are lucky enough to have. She is aware that many go without even one present and started this fundraising campaign.

The Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) has announced a new initiative that will see Tariff points awarded to apprenticeships. This move is designed to give apprenticeships greater recognition and parity with traditional academic qualifications.

If your apprentice hasn't yet attained the required entry level of maths or English at GCSE, we can support them to gain Functional Skills levels 1 or 2 alongside the apprenticeship.

Unlike colleges, we continue delivering our training throughout the summer, and our apprentices have been busy applying their newly developed skills to the workplace. We have lots of stories to celebrate this summer, but here are just a few of them:

Through my mentor at work I was lucky enough to get a chance to shadow a floor manager at ITV Daytime during a live broadcast of This Morning. This was a really exciting opportunity as it is an area of the business my team never gets to come across and production is a big interest of mine.

In this video, we bust some myths around Apprenticeships! Find out the facts from Swarm Training.

3 of our Market Research apprentices attended the launch party for the Market Research Apprenticeship standard