What an apprentice really costs, what to pay a qualified electrician or engineer, and how to keep the people you train.
The apprentice wage is the part everyone quotes, and it is the smallest line on the bill. Add the National Insurance, the off-the-job training hours, and the one nobody writes down: in the government's 2022 Employer Skills Survey, 23% of construction's training spend was the wages of the people delivering it, against 18% across all sectors.
Then there is keeping them. In England in 2024/25, fewer than half of plumbing and domestic heating apprentices achieved their qualification. What an apprentice really costs in the first year, what to pay a qualified electrician or heating engineer so they stay, what the supervision rules actually say on a gas job or a consumer unit, and which of the rules everyone repeats on site are law.
An apprentice can repay the investment, but the available British model puts recovery after qualification. What they produce matters, and so does the time your engineer spends teaching them.
A roofer who fits solar panels could get that one skill recognised without a whole new qualification. CITB is asking employers and workers whether it would work, until 15 January 2027.
Help with tools, PPE and workwear for people starting out in the trade, Electrical Contracting News reports. Students at three colleges get it first. Amounts, eligibility rules and dates aren't out yet, and nothing says a business can apply for its apprentice.
The Home Office guide now covers individual subcontractors you bring in for a customer's job, and can make you liable for labour another business supplies. What protects you depends on who holds which contract.
Daniel Watton approved ladders throughout an exterior painting job. His trainee stepson died moving a fully extended ladder near an overhead power line, and HSE found the original plan unsafe too.
SELECT and the SJIB have renewed their warning about short courses sold as a quick way into the trade, Professional Electrician reports. If you're hiring, the certificate is only half of what you need to know.
Acas is consulting until 17 December 2026 on a draft code for the legal changes expected in autumn 2027. Saying no will also need an explanation of why refusing is reasonable. Until then, keep using the current code.
DWP will pay non-levy employers £2,000 for each eligible apprentice aged 16 to 24, in two halves through your training provider. Staff you already employ only count if they joined you no more than 90 days before their training starts.
North Devon College has opened a Low Carbon Training Centre with Vaillant, Installer reports, for working installers and the college's apprentices. Courses, dates and prices aren't in the report yet.
A head-mounted camera can help someone else see what you see. You can talk through a fault without holding the camera. The useful bits are narrower than the adverts suggest.
CITB has picked one organisation per specialism, from roofing and dry lining to heritage and tunnelling, to support specialist training and NVQs. Courses, costs and start dates are still to be published.
Construction Enquirer says self-employed tradespeople in England and Wales averaged a record £1,110 a week in Hudson Contract's figures. What that means for the labour line in your quotes, and what it can't tell you.
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