An apprenticeship is a job with training built into it, and like any job it comes with terms. Here they are, all of them, in plain English. Read this before you read anything glossy.
A real job with a real employment contract
You are an employee from day one. Wages, holiday, sick pay and pension rights, the same as anyone else on the payroll.
At least six hours a week to learn, on full pay
Your off-the-job training happens inside your working week, and your employer agrees to protect those hours in writing before you start.
A minimum of 5.6 weeks of paid holiday a year
That is the legal floor for full-time work, including bank holidays. Many employers offer more.
A nationally recognised qualification at the end
The certificate follows the national apprenticeship standard for your role. It goes wherever your career goes.
An assessment at the end, run independently
Your final assessment proves your skill to a standard set nationally. The people who judge it are separate from the people who trained you day to day.
A bill of exactly nothing
Your employer and the government levy cover the training between them. The rules ban anyone from charging you, ever.
These are the legal minimums from April 2026. Plenty of employers pay above them, and yours should tell you exactly what you will earn before you sign anything.
The minimum during your first year, or throughout if you are under 19. A 30-hour week at this rate pays around £240 before tax.
Once your first year is done, your age band takes over. For 18 to 20 year olds the minimum jumps by more than a third.
The full National Living Wage. If you start an apprenticeship at 21 or older, this becomes your minimum after year one.
Rates rise every April. Check the current figures at gov.uk, and ask your employer to put your actual wage in writing before you sign the training plan.
The legal minimum for an apprenticeship is eight months. Most of ours run between twelve and eighteen, depending on the level and how much you already know. If your skills check shows real experience, the plan gets shorter. Nobody benefits from stretching it out, least of all you.
You work your normal job, with at least six of your paid hours spent learning. Workshops, practice, projects, time with your assessor. The exact shape gets agreed around your workplace before you start.
You, your employer and your TLC assessor sit down regularly to check progress and fix problems early. These meetings are short, honest and yours. Bring complaints as well as wins.
When you, your employer and your assessor all agree you are ready, you go through the final assessment. Pass it and the certificate is yours for life.
Tell your assessor at the next review, or email us sooner. Those hours sit in a written agreement your employer signed, and protecting them is part of our job, not yours. You should never have to fight for your own training time. One conversation from us usually fixes it.
The rates above are legal floors, and they move. After your first year your age band takes over, which for anyone 21 or over means the full National Living Wage. Beyond that it is a conversation with your employer, and question four on our Deciding for yourself page is written for exactly that conversation: what will my pay be during, and what does it become when I finish?
It depends on your apprenticeship, and we tell you the exact format on day one, not in the final month. For a chef it usually means cooking under observation and talking through your decisions. For care roles it leans on observation and professional discussion. You prepare for it across the whole programme, with practice runs before the real thing, and extra support if exams worry you.
The apprenticeship training itself can never be charged to you, whether you finish or not. The funding rules forbid it. If any employer ever asks you to sign something that claws back training costs for this programme, contact us before you sign it and we will look at it with you.
Every promise on this page goes into a written plan with three signatures on it. Keep your copy. Hold us to it.
The point of a contract
Take the readiness check first. Ten minutes, anonymous, and it tells you whether the route fits before you tell anyone anything.
