T Levels offer students a mixture of classroom learning and ‘on-the-job’ experience during an industry placement of at least 315 hours (approximately 45 days). Industry placements can be split across a maximum of two employers to help deliver a breadth of experience for the student, as well as creating opportunities within small to medium enterprises, in sectors such as creative, digital and construction, where short project-based work is common. Alternatively, a placement can be carried out across an employer’s supply chain or network, up to a maximum of two partners/sub-contractors, to enable students to experience an end-to-end process.

Over 16,000 students started a T Level course from September 2023, which is almost as many students as in the first three cohorts combined, and the department will be introducing new T Levels in September 2024. As the department scale up T Levels, we are keen to increase the numbers of employers offering industry placements. The department has recently published the T Level Action Plan, which sets out further measures the department is taking over the year ahead to support providers and employers to grow their T Level programmes and support even more young people across the country. This includes new resources from the Strategic Development Network to support easier engagement between providers and employers. The T Level action plan can be found here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6627c087d29479e036a7e68e/T_Level_Action_Plan_2023_to_2024.pdf.

Flexi Job Apprenticeship Agencies (FJAAs) were introduced in 2022 to support sectors with short-term, project-based work to access apprenticeships. They allow apprentices to work with different host employers, and on a range of projects, to gain the skills and knowledge needed to be successful in their chosen field.

An organisation must be on the Register of FJAAs to operate as a Flexi-Job Apprenticeship Agency. Any business can contact an agency to become a host employer. The department does not place a limit on how many host employers an agency can work with, it is for the agency to decide what is best for their delivery model.

FJAAs will arrange placements with one or more host employer to cover the duration of the apprenticeship. Placements must offer apprentices the chance and time to obtain and embed the knowledge, skills and behaviours required for their apprenticeship standard. There were 640 FJAA apprenticeship starts in the 2022/23 academic year and 570 starts have been reported from August to January in the 2023/24 academic year. More details on Flexi Job Apprenticeships can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/flexi-job-apprenticeships.

From January 2022, the department has moved away from delivering individual campaigns for each policy product and started delivery of joined up, audience-led campaigns under the banner of Skills for Life, which covers T Levels, Institutes of Technology, Higher Technical Qualifications and others.

Up to and including the 2020/21 financial year, there was a T Level specific marketing campaign with incurred costs of £400,000 in the 2018/19 financial year, £2,667,975 in the 2019/20 financial year and £4,109,207 in the 2020/21 financial year.

The Skills for Life campaign is ongoing. The overall spend for 2023/24 was £12,085,527, as detailed in my response to 7043 on 8 January 2024, which is available at: https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2023-12-14/7043. For the 2021/22 financial year the overall spend was £4,092,000. In the 2022/23 financial year overall spend was £12,400,000.

The information requested is not held by the department.

The department, working closely with the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfATE), has been making progress on the four T Levels deferred in 2023.

T Levels in ‘Craft and Design’, and ‘Media, Broadcast and Production’ will be available from this September and providers will receive final specifications in order to prepare for their delivery in due course.

On ‘Hair, Barbering and Beauty Therapy’ and ‘Catering’, the department has continued to engage closely with employers. Next steps for the ‘Hair, Barbering and Beauty Therapy’ route will be announced shortly. For ‘Catering’, IfATE have completed a wider route review of Catering and will be engaging with employers and providers over the coming weeks. The department we will finalise arrangements for this T Level before the summer.

The department has also been ensuring progress is made with regard to T Levels in ‘Animal Care and Management’ and ‘Marketing’, with both proceeding on schedule for delivery in 2024 and 2025 respectively.

Over 250 providers are delivering 18 T Levels in a range of in-demand subject areas in all regions of the country. A list of these providers is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/providers-selected-to-deliver-t-levels.

Each of these providers will have information on their website relating to their T Level curriculum offer as this differs by school or college, depending on local student demand and employer needs.

Prospective students can also find details of the T Levels available in their area on GOV.UK at: https://www.tlevels.gov.uk/students/find.

The department does hold the data to derive student T Level starts at the local authority and parliamentary constituency level but does not currently publish data at this level. Breakdowns of T Level attainment by local authority will be published as part of the ‘Compare School and College Performance’ data in 2025.

Not content with being in the anti-apprenticeship party, given her plans to weaken the apprenticeship levy and halve the number of apprenticeships, the hon. Lady is also taking on the mantle of T-level denier. We have 18 T-levels; we have, as I mentioned, a 90.5% pass rate; we have 10,000 students doing our T-level programme; and we expect the data that we will release early next year to show that many thousands more students are doing the T-level programme. I am very proud of our T-level programme. I know that the hon. Lady will be eating mince pies at Christmas, but I suggest that early next year she may be eating humble pie, because our T-level programme is something to be proud of.

Regulatory and health and safety considerations vary from sector to sector, including environments where it is acceptable for under-18s to work legally or safely. For industry placements, the same considerations should be made as with any new employee an organisation takes on. For example, many NHS organisations allow under-18s in clinical settings following a risk assessment and after putting in place reasonable adjustments to mitigate the risks.

The department has already built flexibility into the system with provision for placement hours to be delivered in a variety of different methods, including at pathway level or in simulated environments. These delivery models have been put in place to mitigate against situations where it is difficult to accommodate under-18s.

Further information on these approaches can be found at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1166331/Annex_A_industry_placement_delivery_approaches_guidance.pdf.

The department encourages providers to support their local employers in updating risk assessments and putting in place reasonable adjustments to mitigate any risks. Employers may also consider discussing requirements with their insurance provider. More general information on best practice can be found here: https://employers.tlevels.gov.uk/hc/en-gb/categories/4403442822418-During-industry-placements.

I refer the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston to the answer of 13 November 2023 to Question 232.

The Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education have published progression profiles for all 18 T Levels that are currently in delivery. The last of these was published on 22 September for Agriculture, Land Management and Production. The professional profiles are available at: https://www.instituteforapprenticeships.org/qualifications/t-levels/t-level-progression-profiles/#:~:text=IfATE%20has%20worked%20with%20employers,and%20its%20associated%20occupational%20standards.

The department published the 2022/23 T Level Action Plan in March 2023 and it is the department’s intention to publish the next T Level Action Plan in early 2024.

The department does not currently publish T Level student recruitment data at this level.

For the 2023/24 academic year, there are now 18 T Levels available for teaching across 8 routes. These offer specialist knowledge across 56 occupations. Providers determine their local offer based on student demand and local and national employment priorities, offering the T Levels and specialisms needed by their students and local employers.

A list of the available T Levels is available at: https://www.tlevels.gov.uk/students/subjects.

In 2021/22, there were approximately 3,350 students on T Level Transition Programmes across the four available T Level routes. In 2022/23, there were approximately 5,600 students on T Level Transition Programmes across the eleven available T Level routes.

The department will publish progression data on the 2021/22 cohort in due course. Progression data on the 2022/23 cohort is not yet available.

The department strengthened the programme from September 2022 so that as many young people as possible can benefit from T Levels. The programme will be renamed to the T Level Foundation Year, in order to send a stronger signal that it is the first year of a three year journey to a T Level qualification.

The published figures do not specify the total spend on the T Level programme for 2022/2023, 2021/2022 and 2020/2021. The total spend from pre 2019 through to the 2024/2025 financial year is due to be £1,754 million. This includes developing and growing the capacity of teachers to deliver T Levels effectively and significant additional capital funding, in order for providers to have the resources to deliver T Levels to a high standard. Most recently, the department announced £100 million capital funding to support providers delivering T Levels in September 2024 through the Buildings and Facilities Improvement Grant.

The T Level Foundation Year (previously called T Level Transition Programme) is funded as a 16 to 19 study programme. The costs of the T Level Foundation Year is not detailed separately in published allocations. The department has run an externally contracted programme to provide support to colleges and schools in delivering this programme. The costs of this are not published but are included in the figure provided above for total spend on the T Level programme.

T Levels are designed to equip students for skilled employment, whilst also providing a high-quality route to further study, including apprenticeships, higher technical education and degree level study.

Published data from the Department’s Technical Education Learner Survey shows that at the end of their programme, of those completing their T Level in the 2021/22 academic year, 38% were planning to do a degree, 17% an apprenticeship (including a degree apprenticeship), 1% a Higher Technical Qualification (HTQ), 3% another level 4/5 qualification and 3% other type of further study. In total, this is 62% of the cohort completing in 2021/22. The remainder of the cohort were planning to go into paid work (28%), something else (4%) or weren’t sure (5%). This data is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/technical-education-learner-survey-2022.

Further data from the Technical Education Learner Survey will be published in early 2024, which will provide details on the destinations of learners completing a T Level in the 2021/22 academic year.

Destination measures are published for students at the end of Key Stage 5 annually in October, with an approximate 2 year lag to when attainment statistics are published nationally in the 'A level and other 16 to 18 results' statistical release. The department intends to include T Level attainment data for the first time in that release for students at the end of 16 -18 study in 2023/24 (November 2024), and therefore expect the destination measures statistical release for that cohort to also start to include T Level students from October 2026.

The department does not centrally collect data regarding the number of employers who offered industry placements to T Level students. Individual providers hold this data locally, as they own the relationships with their local labour market.

The published figures do not specify the total spend on the T Level programme for 2022/2023, 2021/2022 and 2020/2021. The total spend from pre 2019 through to the 2024/2025 financial year is due to be £1,754 million. This includes developing and growing the capacity of teachers to deliver T Levels effectively and significant additional capital funding, in order for providers to have the resources to deliver T Levels to a high standard. Most recently, the department announced £100 million capital funding to support providers delivering T Levels in September 2024 through the Buildings and Facilities Improvement Grant.

The T Level Foundation Year (previously called T Level Transition Programme) is funded as a 16 to 19 study programme. The costs of the T Level Foundation Year is not detailed separately in published allocations. The department has run an externally contracted programme to provide support to colleges and schools in delivering this programme. The costs of this are not published but are included in the figure provided above for total spend on the T Level programme.

The information requested will be published when fully available in early 2024.

Just over 10,000 new students were enrolled on T Level courses for the 2022/23 academic year. Schools and colleges are still recruiting students for the 2023/24 academic year, which has just started, so we will not have information on how many new students are enrolled on T Levels until later in the autumn.