Treasury expands apprenticeship support to all 14 mayoral areas in England

HM Treasury announced on 28 September 2026 that England’s 14 existing mayoral strategic authorities will receive support to connect young people with local employers through expanded apprenticeship services from spring 2027. The £100 million, two-year expansion is part of a wider UK jobs and skills package. It offers a route to more placements, though the places have yet to be delivered.

The announcement builds on apprenticeship brokerage pilots funded in the 2025 Budget. Treasury says the new money will double the number of areas matching young people with businesses. Mayors will lead services shaped around local skills needs, with a particular focus on connecting young people to smaller employers. The government expects thousands more youth apprenticeships, but has not given a verified count of additional places created or filled.

How the mayoral apprenticeship services are meant to work

The expanded services are intended for all 14 existing Mayoral Strategic Authorities in England with directly elected mayors. Local leaders are expected to bring prospective apprentices and employers together, using knowledge of their labour markets to identify opportunities. The Treasury gives spring 2027 as the start window; it has not set out an exact launch day or detailed arrangements for each area.

This is the change from the earlier pilots: brokerage funding is being extended across the existing mayoral authorities, with £100 million of additional funding over two years. The sum is for local matching services, rather than a count of apprenticeship places. Whether the wider coverage results in the thousands of extra apprenticeships anticipated by ministers will depend on delivery and take-up.

What apprenticeship figures show about young people

The latest full-year figures cited by the Department for Education show 353,500 apprenticeship starts in England in the 2024/25 academic year, a rise of 4.1% from 339,580 the year before. Those figures predate the announced expansion and cannot measure its effect. They do, however, show the scale and age profile of the system into which the new services would feed.

People aged 25 or over accounted for 51.3% of starts in 2024/25. The share taken by under-19s fell to 21.2%, from 23.2% in 2023/24. The department says growth in Level 7 apprenticeship starts explains much of the shift in the age profile. Higher-level apprenticeships, covering levels 4 to 7, accounted for 39.8% of starts, up from 36.0% the previous year.

Those statistics describe all apprenticeship starts, including programmes for existing workers, rather than a tally of openings for first-time jobseekers. They also cover England, matching the geography of the mayoral expansion. The government’s promise of thousands more youth apprenticeships remains a forecast until later data show what the services actually produce.

The separate jobs pledge and workplace learning fund

The Chancellor also said the government would use the National Wealth Fund’s current capitalisation to create and support a further 130,000 jobs across the UK by 2030. The Treasury named AI and technology, defence and clean energy among the sectors it expects to benefit. The 130,000 figure is a government projection, not a count of jobs already created, and the announcement does not say how many would go to young people.

A separate £300 million Rolls-Royce investment in UK manufacturing and engineering facilities was announced as part of the package. The Treasury identified more than £140 million for Derby, over £90 million for Bristol, £43 million for Inchinnan near Glasgow and £19 million for Rotherham. These are investment amounts tied to facilities; they should not be read as confirmed numbers of new jobs or apprenticeships.

For people already in work, the Chancellor confirmed £15 million a year of additional funding to restore the Union Learning Fund in England. The Treasury says employees will not have to belong to a union to benefit. Potential support includes English, maths and digital skills, as well as training for growing industries such as advanced manufacturing. The Treasury says the earlier fund generated 180,000 learning opportunities a year, a historical figure rather than a forecast for the restored scheme.

The Trades Union Congress welcomed the fund’s return and said it had been scrapped in 2021. General Secretary Paul Nowak described the restoration as ‘plain common sense and a real boost for workers, businesses and the economy’. That is the union body’s assessment. Its support for the plan does not establish what outcomes the new funding will achieve.

What remains to be set out

The next detailed funding explanation is due in the Budget. The Treasury says it will set out how the apprenticeship brokerage expansion and the Union Learning Fund restoration are fully funded through savings found by the Department for Work and Pensions. Local delivery plans and an exact start date for each mayoral service have not been specified in the announcement.

For young people seeking an apprenticeship, the immediate development is a commitment to expand local matching services from spring 2027, not an already available new place. The key test will be how many employers participate and how many additional apprenticeships begin once the services operate. The National Wealth Fund jobs figure and the proposed youth apprenticeship increase should likewise be assessed against subsequent delivery, rather than treated as completed outcomes.