Leadership apprenticeships
are changing.
The government has announced that public funding will be withdrawn from 16 apprenticeship standards, including Team Leader Level 3, Operations Manager Level 5 and Improvement Practitioner Level 5, as part of a move to focus apprenticeship investment on young people and critical skills gaps.
For employers, the important point is simple: there will no longer be the same funded, general leadership apprenticeship routes in favour of standards more aligned to functional development. That does not mean leadership development stops. It means planning future leadership development becomes more important.
Next steps
In many cases, the strongest answer for leadership development now may be a blended development plan, guided by the individual’s role and needs. Get in touch to explore the best options for your business.
What options do employers have now?
Leadership development, both for new and existing leaders, will always be a crucial training need across all businesses. The changes being made to funding doesn’t completely stop the ability to support leadership development through funded apprenticeships, but it does introduce some limitations and change the pathways available.
Consider alternative funded apprenticeships
The old funded leadership routes were mainly about managing people. The funded alternatives now are more likely to be about delivering work, improving processes and supporting teams. While there are not like-for-like leadership replacements, there are some funded apprenticeship standards that include elements of leadership and may be suitable depending on the employee’s role and your business need. Some examples are:
Business Administrator
Level 3
Best for office-based staff and people who help organise work and support others.
This route can help develop those who support with communications, planning, meetings, projects and day-to-day coordination.
Good for:
Early-stage leaders
Admin-heavy environments
Roles where focus is more on coordination than supervision
Important limitation:
There is no direct people-management focus on activity such as performance reviews.
Customer Service Specialist Level 3
Best for experienced customer-facing staff who lead by example and support others.
This route can help people handle complex customer situations, guide colleagues and improve service quality.
Good for:
Retail & Hospitality
Call centres
Service teams
Informal leadership roles
Important limitation:
The focus is service leadership, not formal management.
2. Commercially-funded focused leadership development courses and tools
Supplement funded apprenticeship standards with commercially funded courses and tools that focus on leadership skills gaps. Through Swarm Training’s partnerships, employers we work with can get access to accredited and bespoke leadership courses with Swarm Bluewater, and strengths-based leadership profiling and development with Levelation.
This can help cover areas such as:
Coaching
Delegation
Feedback and performance conversations
Sharing goals and vision
Team motivation
Managing change
Leadership confidence
Communication and accountability
Business Analyst
Level 4
Best for people involved in process change, systems, data and better ways of working.
This route supports people to map processes, analyse problems, work with stakeholders and design improved ways of working.
Good for:
Digital change
Transformation
Process redesign
Data-led environments
Important limitation:
This is more analytical than practical and is less focused on leading teams through change.
Associate Project Manager Level 4
Best for people who lead work, coordinate teams and deliver projects or change.
This route supports planning, risk management, budgets, timelines, stakeholder coordination and delivery.
Good for:
Project-heavy environments
Change and transformation roles
Managers focused on delivery
Important limitation:
It has limited people management content, so additional leadership development may still be needed.